Creating a compelling buyer personas for your website is often part of a larger thought process. You may already have them in mind before creating the personas. In order for you to create compelling buyer personas, consider these tips:
1) Determine which characteristics are most important to the type of company you’re looking to build and its vision. Buyer personas can be built on demographics or psychographics that will help determine what groups of people might be interested in your product/service.
2) Keep it simple but specific. It’s easy to go overboard while creating a persona so keep it concise with a few key points about each one. Remember, the whole point is to determine who your target audience is so focus on the most important traits.
3) Make sure you can justify your personas with data. If possible, test them with surveys or focus groups so that they are truly credible and not just something that has been imagined.
4) Use buyer personas to drive what you have on your site and determine whether people will buy. They help determine if the content is valuable to them, help answer their questions, etc. It’s easy to get caught up in creating content that has nothing to do with what’s relevant for those specific users and it won’t benefit you as much as having content that actually speaks directly to those types of customers. Otherwise, there’s a good chance you’re off target and could be spending time and money unnecessarily.
5) Consider different types of buyer personas. For example, if your company works in different industries, be sure to create separate personas for each one (i.e., buyer personas for the restaurant industry).
6) Be aware of scoping when creating buyers personas so that you don’t get too broad or narrow with them. You want them focused but not so focused that they aren’t helpful in the long run.
7) Remember who’s using your site and create content accordingly. If possible, look at analytics data to see which keywords are bringing people to your site that might find what you’re creating relevant. However, keep in mind that just because someone is looking for something on Google doesn’t mean they will turn into a buyer…that’s where buyer personas are most helpful.
8) Test your buyer personas to make sure they’re accurate. It’s easy for them to be skewed if you’re not looking at analytics data or doing research with surveys/focus groups. If possible, spend time on the site and speak with customers in order to determine if what you’ve created is accurate or will work effectively.
9) Consider your sales process when determining which type of persona to create. For example, some people may want a general persona while others could find it useful if it was very targeted based on where they are in the sales cycle.
10) Review buyer personas annually so that they stay up-to-date with how your business is changing and evolving. If certain demographics are no longer accessing your site, it’s best to figure out why they aren’t and remove them from the buyer personas.
Conclusion to Creating Buyer Personas for Your Website
Buyer personas are an important part of the website creation process. They help you create content that will be valuable to your target audience, but it’s vital that they’re accurate too. With buyer personas in hand, you’ll know how people think and what their motivations are when coming across your site. These tips can also come in handy if you want to redesign or update a current page on your site for better conversion rates-just make sure the new persona is still relevant!
