how to create easy and effective buyer personas with a checklist

Buyer PersonasAn easy and effective checklist

with

SECRET

WEAPONS

In Marketing Communication you need to think, feel and communicate

like your target group.

What is a buyer persona?

I have no idea

A buyer persona is a fictional character that represents a segment of your customers.

Seems legit!

But howdo I create

one?

Buyer Persona Checklist

❏ Name and Photo

❏ Background Information

❏ Quote

❏ Goals

❏ Challenges, Fears and Problems

❏ Values

❏ Buying Decision Process

❏ Solutions (Optional)

Let’s check it out!

Checkbox 1

Name and Photo

Questions to ask:

• What is a typical name for someone in your target group?

• What does the person look like?

How to come up with a name

• Talk to your sales managers. What’s the first

name that pops up their mind?

• Useful websites to find names and photos for

your personas are UI Names, UI Faces and

Random Users Generator.

SECRETWEAPON

Checkbox 2

Background Information

Who is your character?

• Age, gender: 31 years old, male

• Job: Creative producer

• Education: Bachelor’s degree in advertising and PR

• Location: Los Angeles (CA)

• Family situation: Single

• Archetype: Straightforward Advertising Professional

Checkbox 3

Quote

What quote summarizes the character of your buyer persona?

Example: “I don’t care working long hours, because

I love to create innovative campaigns for my clients.

Sometimes I wish the communication process with

my clients would be easier.”

Checkbox 4

Goals

Example (3-5 bullet points):

• Wants to get promoted

• Is eager to win awards for his advertising campaigns

• Wants to build great relationships with all of his clients

• Wants to be in control

• Looking for tools to be more effective

What are the person’s goals when looking for a product or service?

Checkbox 5

Challenges, Fears and Problems

What problems does your buyer persona face right now?

Example (3-5 bullet points):

• Feels pressured by his workload

• Is stressed out by all the emails from clients

• Struggles to handle the communication between his co-workers and his clients.

Checkbox 6

Values

What values and attitudes does your persona have?

Example (3-5 bullet points):

• Seeking new ideas

• Freethinker

• Loves the art scene

• Practical minded and straightforward

• Loves the security of a stable income

Checkbox 7

Buying Decision Process

How do they make a buying decision?

Example (3-5 bullet points):

• Always busy, works long hours

• Prefers to gather his information online

• Believes in product referrals of bloggers

• Hates to get bothered by sales calls

Checkbox 8

Solutions (Optional)

How can you help your buyer persona to reach his goals?

Example (1-3 sentences):

Filestage streamlines visual content reviews with clients and co-workers. The web app helps David to cut long email threads to capture all his client’s feedback in one organized workspace.

Agreed!

That’s it. Reallysimple, right?

What isit?!

There is just one missing piece ...

How do I gather data to create a buyer persona?

Let’s do this!

There are 6 Ways to Gather Data

Way 1

Talk to Your Customers

Use the 5-Why-Technique5 Whys is a question-asking technique to get to the root cause of a problem. By repeating the question ‘Why?’ five times you can dig deeper to uncover underlying problems. Each answer forms the basis of the next “Why?” question.

Sure, you won’t ask “why” 5 times in a row to your client. But you get the point. This technique is a thought-provoking impulse for client communication, isn’t it?

SECRETWEAPON

Way 2

Set Up a Survey

Create an online customer survey.

• Send it out to customers within the target group.

• Keep the whole survey short and simple. No more than 10 questions.

• An old rule of thumb in market research says: “The longer your survey, the less people will take part.”

Way 3

Check Your (Site) Analytics

Analytics give you a great overview about typical visitors.

• Where did your visitors come from?

• What devices did they use?

• What sites and keywords did they search before?

Way 4

Research on Social Media

Surf the profiles of your most active followers on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and all your other social media profiles.

• You will find great information about job positions and personal interests of your target group

Way 5

Interview Customer Support and Salespeople

Interview team members that interact with customers on a daily basis.

• You can set up personal interviews, a group discussion or a survey to ask them about the customers.

• But be warned: Employees are often stuck in a routine. In many cases they are just not able to identify the real problems of your target group anymore.

Way 6

Distill Your Research Data

Distill your data to its core.

• Look for patterns

• Filter out the commonalities in your data.

• The more things your data has in common, the more important it is.

Awesome!

You can Download our Buyer Persona Template for Free!

Click here to downlaod our powerful template

Takeaways

To build a great buyer persona you should include these pieces of information:

You can use these approaches to collect customer

insights:

1. Name & Photo

2. Background

3. Goals

4. Challenges and Fears

5. Values

6. Buying Decision Process

7. Solutions

1. Talk to your customers

2. Set up a survey

3. Check your (site) analytics

4. Do research on social media

5. Conduct interviews with customer support and salespeople

blog.filestage.io

BUILD GREATCLIENT RELATONSHIPS

Free checklists,

expert guides and templates!