How to Define Your Buyer Persona and Sell More

It’s important to first know your buyers before you start selling to them. Do you have a buyer persona? Today we’ll explain how you can define your ideal client.

It’s important for both the sales and marketing teams to know what type of prospects they should focus their efforts on. According to a study carried out by ITSMA, only 44% of companies actually have a defined buyer persona. The report centers on the B2B sector and although it’s easier to define your buyer persona in a B2C context, you must always remember that even in business to business: you are buying people, not brands nor companies; human beings, with names just like you or I.

Directing sales and marketing efforts to true prospects is probably a lot more effective than speaking to a large unsegmented public, hoping that at least a small percentage of them are interested in your product or service.

So here’s what you need to know about the buyer persona. What is it? What is it important for? And how can we define it?

What is a buyer persona and how can we use it?

By way of definition, we could say that the concept of a buyer persona references an ideal or archetypal client. It consists of elaborating a profile that can be applied to a group of potential clients that share common characteristics. However, although the buyer persona can have qualities shared by different individuals, it must not be abstract. The more concrete the description of the buyer persona, the better.

So why is it so important to define your buyer persona? Well, the answer is simple. In the sales funnel, there are many types of prospects, and the majority are lost during the process. Only a small part of it actually provides us with conversions that turn into sales.

If you have a well-defined buyer persona, the leads that most resemble the persona will be the most inclined to buy. In the lead qualification process, they will receive a higher lead scoring, or at least allow you to prioritize leads above others (BANT). To learn more about a better lead qualification method and using it in relation to your buyer persona.

Maybe you’re thinking your client portfolio can’t focus on a single profile or buyer persona. Very logical! However, you can define more than one buyer persona but the more you prospect profiles you establish, the more you’ll be dispersing the efforts of your marketing team and sales reps.

How to define the ideal client

There are many ways to define your buyer persona, but the essential consists in asking some questions about the type of client we should focus on and answering them.

The best way to do this is to carry out a small study among your clients,

The questions you can ask to start creating the profile of your buyer persona can vary depending on the sector, your sales process etc.

Consider the following questionnaire template of a hypothetical company that offers training courses.

#1. DEMOGRAPHIC DATA

• Sex
• Age
• Education
• Marital status
• Purchasing power

#2. PERSONAL PROFILE

• What are their hobbies?
• What makes them happy?
• How do they measure success?
• Who are the most influential people in their life?

#3. PROFESSIONAL PROFILE

• What is their role within the company?
• Do other people depend on them?
• Who do they report to?
• What are their responsibilities within the company?
• What are their professional aims?

#4. PURCHASE BEHAVIOR

• Are they a decisive person?
• What evaluations do they make when buying?
• Do they focus on quality over price?

#5. RELATION TO THE COMPANY

• How do they respond to sales reps?
• Do they open our newsletters?
• Why do they need to work with us?
• How much time or how many visits does it take before they make a purchase decision?

Once you’ve come up with answers to all the questions, the company can start to elaborate the buyer persona profile.

Natalia Human Resources

• Woman
• 35 years old
• Degree in psychology and a Masters in languages.
• Married with two children.
• Medium to high purchase power

• Plays sports
• Devoting time to her family makes her happy
• Uses personal and professional satisfaction to measure success
• Her family has a big influence on her life

• Natalia is a Human Resources Technician
• 4 dependents
• She reports to her Department Director
• In charge of designing and supervising the selection process, applying the regulatory framework and managing the hiring of trainers.
• Her professional aims are to manage a team that feels valued in the company and to avoid unnecessary dismissals.

• Natalia’s decision-making is based on the purchase.
• Looks at the professionality of the company when signing a contact.
• She puts quality above price.

• Kindly takes to sales reps
• Reads 65 % of newsletters.
• To provide quality training courses to the employees.
• Needs 2-3 visits from a sales rep before making a purchase decision.

A full profile is extremely useful for the marketing department who can put it to use straight away for their ad campaigns. Also, with regards to the sales department, their sales reps now know the philosophy and values of their buyer persona. They know, for example, that while discounts are always a good hook, it’s worth much more to have fewer prospects of a good quality than many different prospects of a larger quantity. They also know that too much pressure shouldn’t be applied on the first visit, because closing a sale takes time.

You can use the questionnaire above, adapt it to your sector, company etc. and define your buyer persona!