Who are you marketing to? Do you know the characteristics of your prospective customers? To target your marketing well, you need an archetype, which marketers call the ‘Buyer Persona’ or sometimes the customer or marketing persona. And sometimes they use ‘Customer Avatar’.

Whichever term you use, this is like creating a character sketch of a typical member of a single customer segment. If you do the detailed work of carefully characterizing the people you want to sell to, you can better target your marketing.


Watching this video is worth 3 Management Courses CPD Points*.
See below for details

Marketing for Managers
This video is part of course module number 8.3.2
Program 8: Managing Customers & Clients
Course 3: Marketing for Managers
Section 2: Marketing Strategy

Other videos in this section include:
What is Market Research? https://youtu.be/a9wa1-_2R9E
What is a Marketing Strategy? https://youtu.be/cpPjuKfswOo
What is Market Segmentation? https://youtu.be/7FtiPAlBdto
What is Multi-Level Marketing (MLM)? https://youtu.be/u7rRVM_eTo4

LESSON NOTES
Why do we need a Buyer Persona?
‘Targeting’.

To tailor your messages, images, and campaigns, you need to know what your potential customers are like, and what they like. So, we define an archetypal model of each group of customers. These models are known as ‘personas’ or ‘avatars’ of the customer. And hence, customer persona, or buyer persona, or marketing persona, and so on.

What is a Buyer Persona?
A buyer persona is a profile of one segment of the target audience for your marketing. It allows you to deliver content, messages, and adverts that this part of your audience will find most relevant, interesting, and resonant.

Marketing Persona, Buyer Persona, or Customer Persona
- Marketing persona refers specifically to the persona or avatar you create to help you engage potential buyers, through your marketing and advertising.
- Buyer persona refers to the characteristics you harness to convert an interested prospect into someone who will buy.
- Customer persona refers to the avatar or persona of a segment of people who have bought from you.

How to Create a Buyer Persona
The goal of advertising is to serve just the right ad to each person, at just the right time, via the right channel. Personas allow us to approach that ideal.

Create multiple personas; one for each group of people whom you want to attract. The more precise you can be about each one, the better you’ll be able to craft your communications with them. Here is a list of the characteristics to work on.

The Characteristics of Your Buyer Persona
Who are they? Start with basic demographic information.

What are they Interested in?
Next, think about their interests, as relevant to your product or service.

What will Grab their Attention?
How will you hook their interest?

How can You Convert them to Buyers?
Now you need to understand their buying choices and how they make their decisions

Have your persona profiles available whenever you are creating marketing plans, advertising, promotions, or any other marketing collateral. Always check: ‘is what we are creating speaking directly to the person in the persona description?’

RECOMMENDED EXERCISE
1. Think about a product or service you know well. You are the buyers? Construct your own personas for 3 different typical buyers. (6 MC CPD Points)
2. Pick 3 very different friends or colleagues. Capture them as potential personas or avatars for consumer products or services. (6 MC CPD Points)

DOWNLOADS
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Paid resources
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RECOMMENDED READING
Very quick overview
Marketing: A Very Short Introduction https://geni.us/ozSJF
Good general overviews
Kotler on Marketing https://geni.us/JNeVHy
Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind https://geni.us/kGj4KCA
The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing https://geni.us/RVU1
Marketing For Dummies https://geni.us/sZXAw
Small business marketing
The 1-Page Marketing Plan https://geni.us/Xb4wBk
For a textbook, you can’t go wrong with Kotler’s name on it!
Marketing: An Introduction https://geni.us/q4gzVOw
Principles of Marketing https://geni.us/gsFeMT5
Marketing Management https://geni.us/i3FO

⭕️ Links to our book recommendations are affiliated through Amazon

Managers Need a Basic set of kit to do your job well. Here are my top recommendations: https://kit.co/MikeClayton/manager-s-work-kit (the links are affiliated)

MANAGEMENT COURSES CONTINUING PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT (CPD) POINTS
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