The Buyer Persona and Buyer Journey

My favorite part of working with a new client is discovering who they're selling to. This is because you get to see the business owner, usually enthusiastically, describe to you what their business is all about. They tell you how they make life easier for their clients by providing convenience where the competitors do not and how they offer hands-on engagement where the competition falls flat. As a digital marketer this makes the process of defining the buyer persona and buyer journey much easier.

What is a Buyer Persona? • The fictional representation of your ideal customer.

What is the Buyer Journey?

• A customer's progression through the research and purchase decision process. The most important factors in marketing and content creation are the Buyer Persona and Buyer Journey. You have to know who you're marketing to and where and when you can reach them. Below I've featured Single Grain's basic template. I like to refer back to this template when establishing a buyer persona for a client.

Image Source: Single Grain Above we see the main elements taken into consideration when thinking about our potential customer. We see the background, demographics, goals, hobbies and interests, challenges, common objections, and biggest fears. These are all hypothetical, "Tommy" is not a real person but he represents your very real customer base. Will the customer always be male? No. Will they always have the same hobbies and interests as our first buyer persona? No. Tools like Facebook's Audience Insights and SEM Rush can help guide you when filling out the buyer persona template above. You can look up interests, demographics, and hobbies in your area or industry all for free with a Meta Business Suite account. Things like common objections and challenges should come from your sales team or your customer service team interactions with customers. They'll have the audience feedback insights that Facebook can't provide. If you get the chance to ask your customers yourself, take it. A survey, Q&A, or just a brief chat in person or over the phone can give you the details you need to discover more about your average buyer. The Buyer Journey is where the digital marketers Google Analytics skills shine bright. Where did they come from and where will they go next, are the insights needed to market to customers at the right time. If they're not online or what you provide is not in season, then your buyer persona will never see your marketing efforts. There are four parts to the buyer journey best illustrated by Linchpin SEO's guide.

Image Source: www.sevenatoms.com

Above we see the four main components to the buyer journey. Attract or Awareness: This is where your prospects reside. They're seeing blogs, website content, press releases, videos or social media posts.

Convert or Consideration: They've completed a goal on your website. Here they are requesting quotes, signing up to a newsletter and visiting landing pages.

Close or Decision: Here you've almost got them locked down. You're giving them coupons to make a purchase, they're on your email list, and you're nurturing them.

Delight: This is your chance to foster brand loyalty, reoccurring business, and recommendations. Much like the close stage you're still nurturing the customer.

Conclusion The buyer persona and buyer journey are the key factors for a successful marketing manager. Knowing who your customer is and when you can reach them establishes the foundation for achieving your business goals and seeing real results. Content creation is made easier when these factors are in play because you can easily format a campaign that reaches the right people at the right time.