For Successful Sales, Build Better Customer Profiles

Social media and data processing have made buyer personas more valuable--here's how to build them out.

By Expert Opinion by Young Entrepreneur Council

Daman Jeet is the co-founder of FunnelKit, a suite of sales tools that helps businesses streamline their checkout process.

Can you imagine trying to sell a product on a busy sidewalk? The people walking by are totally random and all have unique interests. You have to go out of your way to get their attention, and even then, there's a good chance that most people who stop to talk won't want what you're selling. 

Sounds frustrating, right? 

Now, think about how much easier it would be to get sales if you could look at someone and know their interests, goals, roadblocks, and, most importantly, whether they need your product. Odds are, you'd have a much higher success rate. With buyer personas, all of this and more is possible. 

Buyer personas are fictional profiles that show the demographics, needs, and pain points of your ideal customers. Brand leaders and marketers can use this information to better understand their audience, which makes it a vital component for businesses across all industries.

Here are four ways you can build better personas for your business.

1. Conduct polls and surveys.

One of the first things you should do is to embrace a detailed and consistent feedback loop. User feedback is the best way to find out what people think of your products, your company, and the industry as a whole. 

What people share during these moments can shape your business for years to come. 

Include relevant surveys on your website, conduct polls on social media, and send questionnaires to your email subscribers. You'll also want to use a mix of open and close-ended questions so you can figure out what people want and expect from your brand. 

You can learn a lot about existing customers by asking questions about their demographics, lifestyles, challenges, and their preferences. The data you collect will reveal patterns and insights into what motivates your customers and provide the perfect foundation for your buyer personas.

2. Analyze customer data.

Now, it's time to analyze all the data you've collected about your customers. You're going to want to look for trends and patterns in their answers so you can group them with other like-minded people. 

These subgroups are known as segments and are how many marketers personalize emails and other types of marketing. 

For example, a pet supply company would want to group their customers based on the type of animal each person owns. They would have a group for cat owners, a group for dog owners, and a third group for people who have both. 

Since each group has its own set of goals and pain points, the marketing for each persona is a little different. Dog owners don't need to worry about cat litter, while cat owners are rarely concerned with buying a leash. 

Aside from obvious similarities in the types of products they need, you'll want to consider other questions like: 

• What age ranges, income levels or locations appear most often, and do they show similar needs and preferences?

• What common purchase patterns do customers follow? Do they tend to buy certain products together? If so, why?

• What products or features are most popular? Which sees the least engagement?

• What challenges do customers frequently discuss? What problems are they trying to solve that you can help with now? What about in the future? 

Once you've analyzed both customer feedback and marketing analytics, you'll find you're in a better position to create realistic, relevant customer personas. 

3. Engage in social listening.

If you're not practicing social listening, you're missing out on a big opportunity to learn about your audience. As the name implies, social listening involves spending time on social media so you can see what other people are saying about your products and the industry. 

For instance, lead-generation software might review the email marketing hashtag on popular social sites to see if there are any common questions, complaints, or conversations where they can jump in and help. 

Not only is this great for connecting with new prospects, but it's also helpful from an observational point of view. You'll be able to identify pain points and priorities that you can use to shape future content, posts, and products. 

For people who don't have a lot of time to spend on social media, consider investing in a social listening tool that automatically compiles mentions based on the keywords you ask it to track. This seemingly simple tip will streamline the process and make it even easier to engage in social listening.

4. Refine over time.

As with any process, building buyer personas requires ongoing refinement and improvement. Each quarter, review and refine them based on new data so you always know what people expect from your product. 

You'll want to use this opportunity to review any new customer surveys, market research, or analytics you have collected. Look for trends that indicate new motivations, behaviors, or attributes that weren't there the last time you checked. 

This is also an excellent chance to streamline and merge personas if you find that two groups have become basically identical. 

Your target audience and their needs are constantly evolving, so you need to make sure you're refining your buyer personas so they are up-to-date and useful to your team. 

As you can see, the concept of buyer personas hasn't changed much over the last decade. However, there have been some serious advancements in terms of social media and data processing that make these tools more valuable than ever before. Make sure you take advantage of these resources and start building detailed personas today, so you're ahead of the curve and on the right path to meet your customers' needs.