Buyer Personas: Creating Content for Your Sales Funnel

Buyer Personas: Creating Content for Your Sales Funnel

Enthusiastic Emily. Organic Olivia. Sales Sam. New Parent Pete. Do any of these names sound familiar to you? Buyer personas are semi-fictional representations created to reflect your ideal customers. They are based on data and research and guide your product development to suit your target customers. We suggest you take a moment to familiarize yourself with our previous post on sales funnels, as it's relevant to this discussion.

Why Buyer Personas Are a Must for Business

If you don't deeply know your customers, it becomes impossible to communicate authentically and inspire action. When you take the time to learn who your customers are, you ensure you speak to their specific needs and desires in a language familiar to them. It is impossible to deny the profound impact these factors can have on conversion rates. When businesses begin with the customer in mind, positive company results tend to follow.

How Can Buyer Personas Be Used in Marketing?

Personas enable you to personalize your marketing for different segments of your audience. It is noteworthy to suggest creating negative personas, too, as it gives you the advantage of segmenting the 'difficult apples' from the rest of your contacts. Once done, you can achieve a lower cost-per-lead and cost-per-customer, contributing to higher sales productivity.

Six Types of Buyer Personas

We caution against asking simply, "What are the different types of buyer personas?" and adjusting one to your business. There is no universally recognized buyer persona, just as there is no standard for the number of personas you need. Your business is unique, and your buyer personas need to be too.

• The Loyalist: Highly committed to a particular brand, they'll remain loyal even if a competitor offers a better deal.
• The Value Shopper: Always looking for the best deal, they'll compare prices and shop around to get the most bang for their buck
• The Innovator: Driven by the need to be the first to adopt a new product or technology.
• The Impulsive Buyer: Prone to spontaneous decisions, they don't spend much time researching and are often emotionally driven.
• The Perfectionist: Highly motivated by quality, they're willing to pay a premium for the best product or service.
• The Bargain Hunter: Highly motivated by discounts and promotions, they'll go out of their way to find the best deal.

Building a Buyer Persona

There is a lot to consider before creating effective buyer personas. It's critical to paint a complete picture of who your customers are so that you can better serve them. Some things to consider things like:

There is a lot to consider before creating effective buyer personas. It's critical to paint a complete picture of who your customers are so that you can better serve them. Some things to consider things like:

• Identifying Your Target Audience: You can't make a buyer persona without first identifying your target audience. You'll need to think about who you're trying to reach and then learn about their needs and desires.
• Research Your Target Audience: Conduct research to understand your target audience. Talk to your current customers, visit forums and blogs, and look at industry and competitor data.
• Create a Profile: With data in hand, create a profile describing your ideal customer. Remember to include demographic information, such as age, gender, and occupation, as well as psychographic information, such as values, interests, and goals.
• Identify Their Challenges and Pain Points: Once you have done this, you will better understand what motivates your customers and how to serve them better.
• Develop Your Persona: Take the information gathered in the above steps and develop a persona to represent your ideal customer. Don't forget to give them a name, photo, and backstory. This process will help make your customers seem real and allow you to create marketing messages that resonate with them.

Why is it Important to Create Content for Each Buyer's Journey Stage?

Today, the buyer's journey and sales funnel have become less linear than in the past. Your prospects and customers have unprecedented information at their fingertips and a variety of marketing messages bombarding them from every direction.

Creating content for each stage of the buyer's journey and marketing funnel stages means allowing prospects to move at their own pace through awareness, consideration, and conversion stages with your company until they decide to buy. You give them all the information and education they need to make their choice without gaps or intrusive selling. In return, you'll see better conversion rates — when it's done well.

To pull as many people as possible into the sales funnel, you need to create content that speaks to all of those different personas. This is when it is valuable to consider using landing pages. Check out the previous post on some simple truths for landing pages to help you get started.

Awareness Stage Content

At the initial stage, buyers need more educational content to solve a problem or get an answer. Your content at this stage can include blog posts, ebooks, social media, and how-to videos and should have a solid SEO/SEM strategy designed to bring buyers to the top of the funnel.

You are providing help and information more than selling a solution, so your content should be more educational than sales-oriented. Much of it can be evergreen to ensure you're not constantly chasing creative content ideas once the initial plan is in place.

Consideration Stage Content

Once you reach the consideration stage, your pool of leads narrows from a broad range of people searching for information to prospects who are stronger leads. This stage is the time to focus on building trust and nourishing your relationship. Consider using content such as case studies, product comparison guides, blog posts, videos, and free samples.

Decision Stage Content

When your prospect wants to make a purchase, you need content that encourages them to choose your business over everyone else. They're evaluating specific options and offers, so your decision-stage content should include pieces that handle their objections and remove their hesitation about purchasing from you.

Content for Sales Funnel: Key Takeaways

Buyer personas are an excellent way to compose strong content for your sales funnel. When you provide information each buyer persona needs, and with some persuasion, they move to the next stage and ultimately become customers. It’s necessary to remember there is no one-size-fits-all solution for buyer personas. If you need to grow your business to the next level, contact the friendly and knowledgeable team at Alley Kat Web Consulting for your free needs assessment and find the success you deserve.