Customer Personas: How To Identify Your Ideal Buyer

Do you know exactly who your ideal customer is? Have you developed accurate customer personas? Many company leaders may say something like: "Of course we do! We sell to tech companies." But do they understand which people have a stake in the decision-making process at one of those tech company clients? Who actually makes the final decision?

As you can tell from this simple example, staying at the surface level of who a customer is inevitably results in knowledge gaps for marketers and salespeople alike. Perhaps just as bad is when everyone on an integrated team has completely different ideas about what their target consumer looks like. (For instance, are "tech companies" SaaS companies or IT service providers... or both?)

Without having clearly defined and detailed customer personas to help you focus your efforts, misalignment is all but guaranteed. Put another way: you may reach out to the wrong people, with the wrong messaging, while promoting the wrong product.

On the other hand, when you have that clear-cut customer persona in front of you, everyone on your team will be in a much better position to succeed. Your sales reps will understand how and why your customers interact with your brand. Plus, they may even be able to answer customer questions before they ask them. And your marketers will be able to craft highly targeted and compelling content — content that generates conversions. 

The Groundwork for Creating a Hyper-Specific Customer Persona

There is a basic three-step system that will help you narrow down which customers you should pursue in the first place. Here is what it involves:

1. Organize and rank your customers. If you want to effectively attract new customers, you must first understand who you're already selling to. Develop three to five categories that are meaningful for your business, and then segment your customers according to those categories. (Some clients may be in multiple categories.) Look for big-picture characteristics that are specific to your best customers.
2. Narrow your list to your top customer types. You may already know who your best customers are, but it's important to project those customer types into the future, and carefully consider whether your business would be better off with more of them in the fold. For instance, how profitable are your relationships with "ideal customers" right now? How much of a headache are they for your team members (e.g., lots of emergency calls, extra work, and so on)? How enjoyable are they to work with? You should definitely consider factors like these when determining who you actually want as a customer moving forward.
3. Zoom in to an individual level. Now that you know which customer type you're aiming for, it's time to drill down to an individual level, and think about the day-to-day struggles and personal aspirations that your ideal customer would likely have. For example, instead of saying your customers are tech companies, you could say something like: "We're selling to the VP of engineering at a midsize software company whose development team doesn't have the resources to get a product to market in time." Now that's a specific target!

Why Flexibility Is Key

At times, your ideal buyer may need something you didn't foresee. Even if the discovery initially catches you off-guard, once you have that information in hand, you can use it to pivot your strategy and create more effective marketing materials and sales pitches.

Keep a close eye on how your marketing campaigns perform after you've created a new customer persona. Are you generating as many leads as expected? Are those leads converting, or is there a bottleneck somewhere in the sales funnel? Don't be afraid to go back to the drawing board if it's obvious that your messaging or offering doesn't align with customer needs. You may be selling to the wrong people, or may just need to tweak your offering to resolve a more specific problem than you'd anticipated. 

Of course, communication between your sales and marketing teams is absolutely imperative if you want to maintain your flexibility. Be especially sensitive to the risk points that leads may express concern over — your ability to sell your offerings to them depends on your ability to address those risks. 

Paint a Detailed Picture of Your Customer Personas

When you begin to develop customer personas, you want to make it as realistic and detailed as possible, even to the point of choosing a stock photo to go along with the fictional name you've selected. A good starting point may be thinking about one of your current customers who fits the mold of an ideal buyer. Perhaps you can ask your sales team about them, or even interview them personally. Then, you'll be able to leverage your knowledge of that customer, along with some historical data, to create a persona that effectively mirrors real life.

Spend some time imagining your customer persona's profile and general characteristics. As you develop the persona, drill down as far as you can go in terms of personal demographics. For instance, you may want to think about distinctive elements like:

• Their personal name (first, last, and maybe even middle initial)
• Their age (an age range is fine here)
• Their gender
• Their marital status
• The number of kids they have
• How many pets they have
• Their hobbies
• What their extended family looks like (if applicable)
• Their job title or titles (no more than five)
• The amount of time they've been working for their current employer
• Their education and work experience
• The type of content they typically consume, and how much of it they consume on a regular basis (daily, weekly, monthly)

​Of course, there's no need to go overboard with your customer persona: you're a salesperson, not a Russian novelist! Still, the more relatable you make it, the easier it will be for your sales and marketing team to identify with and adapt to your target consumer. It certainly takes some effort to identify and define your ideal buyer. But at the end of the day, doing so is a major step toward improving your company's sales performance and forging long-lasting, mutually beneficial relationships.

Learn More

A healthy relationship between sales and marketing is vital to an organization’s success. Dive deep into this effective strategy in a new book called Sales & Marketing Alignment. If you'd like more insights on how you can improve your sales leadership, contact us. Or sign up for our newsletter for more valuable resources.

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