Looking to build a buyer persona for your business but don’t know where to start? GreenStar Marketing is here to help! Simply follow the steps as outlined below in our buyer persona worksheet and you’ll have a working buyer persona in no time.
Buyer Persona Worksheet Step 1: Research Your “Target Audience.”
Think about who your “perfect customer” would be. What would they look like? What would they be interested in purchasing? If nothing comes to your mind immediately, that’s okay! You can start by:
- Interviewing customers and prospects to find common traits
- Examining how prospects are engaging with your website, social media platforms, etc.
- Gathering insights from your sales team on what kind of clients are coming their way
Once you’ve got all the information you need, and pinpointed all the similarities you can find, it’s time for step two.
Step 2: Record Their Business Details
How big is their business? If the business is small, the person you’re selling to probably wears a lot of hats and will be looking for a solution that makes their lives a little easier. If the business is larger, they’ll probably be looking for a solution that streamlines their internal workflows, simplifies collaboration across teams, etc.
What industry are they in – finance, advertising, real estate, construction, hospitality? If you attract a lot of business from 1-2 specific industries, now you know what to specialize in! You can learn the terminology, attend the right tradeshows, and offer products that fit just right.
Example: You discover that most of the deals you landed this year were multi-site businesses with 50-150 employees at each location. These businesses are also in the hospitality industry.
Step 3: Log Demographic Information
This can include everything from age, gender, and marital status to education, employment level, and so on. While you ultimately decide what information is relevant to your business, we recommend focusing on age and education level first as those affect how content is read and received. It’ll help your marketing team write copy your target audience can easily engage with.
Example: In your research, you find lot of your customers are married men between the ages of 25 and 40, whose highest education level is a bachelor’s degrees.
Step 4: Outline Career Basics
What makes your buyer successful at what they do? Managing a team well, executing specific tasks well? Whatever it may be, these details will help you further hone your content strategies.
- What’s their job title?
- What does the job entail?
- Who do they report to?
Example: These men are senior manager at their company. They usually oversee the day-to-day operations of multiple businesses, from cleaning staff to front desk workers. They typically answer to a regional director who oversees a specific geographic region.
Step 5: Record Their Goals & Their Challenges
Gaining a better understanding of your target customers’ day-to-day responsibilities, struggles and overall goals will help you understand what kind of solutions they would be looking for to help them do their job. This understanding will also give you the insights you need to tailor that solution to their specific needs.
Example: The customers you’ve interviewed said their biggest goal was to provide excellent and consistent customer care across all their sites. Their biggest challenge? Maintaining consistency with their current communications solution.
Step 6: Understand How They Work
What kind of tools do your buyers use in their everyday workflows? A CRM platform? A cloud storage service? A project management software? Whatever it might be, discovering what their current tools have in common with your solution will come in handy when you’re choosing which benefits to highlight or which new integration to include.
Some common business software includes:
- Accounting or bookkeeping systems
- CRM platforms
- Reporting dashboards
- Project management services
Step 7: Discover How They Consume Media
Make sure you’re spending your marketing dollars on media outlets your buyers will see! To find out where your buyers might spend their time, ask yourself these two questions:
- Where do they go to build their professional skills? If it’s specific tradeshows, consider sponsoring a booth at one.
- What social media networks do they use? Whether it’s LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, or TikTok, be sure you’re producing content that fits the platforms your buyer uses.
Example: Your current buyer persona reads hospitality periodicals online to gain industry knowledge and typically interacts with brands on LinkedIn and Instagram.
Buyer Persona Worksheet Step 8: Name Your Persona(s)
This will not only help you humanize your buyer persona but also help you remember what industry they’re in.
Example: Because you’re attracting businesses with multiple sites, you name your persona “Multi-Site Matt.”
Buyer Persona Worksheet Need a Boost? Reach Out to GreenStar Marketing for a Free Consultation!
