Today on Inbound Academy. We're talking buyer personas. You want to sell stuff, you need to figure out who your ideal customer is and how you can reach them. It's like catching flies with honey horses with apples, pretzels with mustard. Let's get into it.

Episode Transcript

Jeff Lambert: Is it that time of day again? I hope it's the best part of your day. Hello, and welcome to another episode of Rizen Inbound Academy. I'm your host Jeff Lambert. Today we're going to discuss buyer personas. What are they and how can they help you reach more customers? Joining me today is Nicole Mena, the Design Director at Rizen. Nicole, welcome back.

Nichole Mena: Thanks for having me Jeff.

Jeff: So Nicole, we are talking about buyer personas today. That's a term that some of our listeners may not be familiar with if they're not up on modern marketing techniques...or just inbound in general. So if you could define what a buyer persona is, I guess in a short nutshell for our customers and our listeners, what is a buyer persona?

Nichole: So a buyer persona is a semi-fictional representation of your ideal customer based on real data from existing customers. And then some educated speculation about demographics, behaviors, motivations, and goals.

Jeff: So buyer personas are something that's recommended by the inbound philosophy. How do buyer personas help me better reach my customers and build better relationships?

Nichole: So a buyer persona kind of fits into that because it's not scattershot advertising, right? You're researching who your product or service will appeal to.

Jeff: Got It. So you're going directly to someone who fits into a certain profile of what I'm selling. If I'm selling surfboards, and there's a guy that lives in Kansas, he's not going to be interested.

Nichole: Right. That could be an example.

Jeff: So let's jump into another example. Let's say that...I dunno...I have a business for antique bottle caps. Right? I want to sell those to collectors. But that's a really niche market, right? I mean, I think we'd all fit in one room together. So did I just create a buyer persona by saying, "oh, there's only small amount of us" or is there more to it than that?

Nichole: Yeah, it's a bit more complicated than that. Personas are created through research; through surveys and interviews of your target audience. You can use search engines and publications related to your industry to find common wants and needs and interests for that group. You can even talk to your sales team to get feedback, because they talk to your prospects all the time so they'll know. As well as other people on, on your, on your teams. Then interview customers and prospects, which I think is probably one of the most important pieces. You'll discover what they like and don't like about your product or service.

Jeff: So again, it's responsive to the customer.

Nichole: Yes, exactly.

Jeff: So if I'm starting off at square one and I'm a business owner, I may not have complete access to a lot of these analytics tools at my disposal. But if I wanted to start with a basic buyer persona, what are some categories that I should include in that?

Nichole: Absolutely. So you'll want to include background. So things like job, career path, do they have a family, let's say? Demographics, gender, age, income, a geo-location and some identifiers like demeanor, preferred communication methods, social media channels that they use and how they research information online.

Jeff: So I've gathered all that information together and I have those categories and I'm doing my best to fill in that information. And you can certainly expand your buyer persona as you get more information?

Nichole: Yes, of course. Of course.

Jeff: It should be a constantly evolving, huh?

Nichole: Evolving. Constantly evolving.

Jeff: So there's really no excuse not to start one today?

Nichole: Of course!

Jeff: Gotcha. Okay. So to our listeners, hey, you know, even if you have limited amounts of information about your customers, you can certainly build that out as time goes on. The important thing is to start. So I have all this information, or at least I've gathered as much as I can. What do I do with that information now?

Nichole: Okay, so you want to use it to find commonalities in their goals and challenges, right? So ask your company, how they can help them achieve their goal and solve their problems. And then you want to craft your messaging around that. So everyone in your company is speaking the same message to your customers or prospects. And then if you have any more questions about creating a persona, we have a great sample of a buyer persona with questions you should ask when developing one on our website. So feel free to download that.

Jeff: That's great. Okay, so for our listeners, I'll make sure to post that in the show notes so you can click that link and go right there. And you said that's a free resource?

Nichole: Yes, it is.

Jeff: Awesome. Hey, Rizen's always there for all of us. That's great. Well, Nichole, thank you for joining us today and talking to me a little bit about the basics of buyer personas.

Nichole: Thanks Jeff.

Jeff: And to our listeners, thank you again for tuning in. Remember, we have a new episode coming out every weekday available for you. It's never longer than 10 minutes, so it fits into your schedule. If you need a little bit of marketing help, we're here to help you. Rizen is here to be able to help bridge that gap for you as you grow with inbound. So if you're looking for a results-driven team and someone that wants to build a relationship with your company, check out what Rizen has to offer. There are available at gorizen.com. You can also reach out and follow them on social media. They're available on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at the username Rizen Inbound. Again, that's one word, Rizen Inbound. Thanks again for joining us today and we'll see you on the next episode!