Buyer personas on HubSpot

In digital marketing, the buyer persona acts as a semi-fictional representation of the ideal customer for the brand. In other words, the character that the company wants to attract to convert into a customer of the product or service. The buyer persona is essential in any inbound marketing strategy as it facilitates the approach with users and allows to adapt the actions to the objectives of the brand. Knowing what they need and what are the tastes of visitors is key to optimise the user experience.

Commonly, the buyer persona can be confused with the target audience or target. However, they have theoretical differences. The target audience appears from a demographic cut that covers the group of society to which the company intends to address. On the other hand, the buyer persona is born from the data segments and specifies the motivations and needs of the user, among others. The buyer persona helps to generate useful and relevant content. There are three types of buyer persona: The first is the one who makes the final purchase decision in the buyer's journey, the second recommends the product and determines the final decision of another buyer and the third represents customers who are not willing to make a purchase.

why is it important to create buyer personas?

A content marketing strategy is based on making the user want to read the brand's content, recommend it and repeat the experience. To do this, it is necessary to define the profile of your buyer persona. After this, you can direct your strategy more clearly by focusing on specific aspects such as the topic, tone, type of content or publication schedule. The main objective is to increase the ROI of the audience. Platforms like HubSpot allow you to create buyer persona templates and apply them to your marketing strategy with ease.

How to define your buyer persona in 4 steps

1. Define your company's objectives

To start designing your buyer persona, you need to know what your company'sobjectives are and what needs youwant to meet. In other words, you need to know why you need a buyer persona. To do a good job, you need to gather as much information as possible and start defining their profile. It is essential to have the following data:

• Demographic data: Gender, location, age, employment status, etc.
• Personal information: Married, single, living with parents, no children, etc.
• Employment information: Student, employed, unemployed, sector of work, etc.
• Objectives: The goals you intend to achieve in the short and long term, your personal and professional expectations.
• Concerns: The challenges and problems you face in achieving your goals.
• Personality: What is their attitude towards your brand, what are their interactions with the website, what devices they use to browse the internet, etc.

2. Gather information about your customers

The next step is togather information about your real customers- what their needs, tastes and goals are. The first step is to consult available sources, i.e. go through your company's database to find demographic data and personal information about your buyers. This will help to predefine the type of people who are interested in your brand.

Next, you should cross-check the information with the sales team. The marketing team should take into account the information from this department. They know the profile of the audience that makes purchases and will be able to define their strengths and weaknesses. Finally, it is advisable to go to external sources. In other words, go to the social networks where your brand's customers are found. From Facebook or LinkedIn you can find out about their interest groups and interactions with other pages and blogs.

3. Find sales opportunities

Once you have the information you need to discard the information that is not of interest to the brand and profile the buyer persona. The information that answers the questions for your company's objectives should remain in the profile. In this way, you will be able to solve their needs and you will be clear about the key points of the buyer persona.

4. Build the buyer persona

It is recommended that buyer personas are generated from market research or conversations with information teams such as interviews or surveys. Also, they should have easy-to-remember names to keep in mind. Another key point is to choose a good template. HubSpot provides users with default templates. The data should be presented in an orderly and clear manner. The buyer persona template should be understandable to the rest of the company and use a practical format.

how often should buyer personas be audited and updated?

Buyer personas are created through surveys, interviews and market research. As we are working with data, we need to ensure that this information is not out of date. Therefore, buyer personas should be updated regularly . Business models change, merge or change their objectives. As a result, the audience also evolves.

The frequency with which buyer personas should be audited varies based on internal and external factors such as market impact or price increases. Even so, it is recommended to update at least twice a year to redefine the profiles. The monitoring will be more frequent if the company's job market is constantly renewed.

How to add buyer personas in HubSpot

To add buyer personas in HubSpot, go to the Reports Dashboard and look for the report called Top Buyer Personas. If it doesn't appear, you will need to add it by clicking on the Add Report button.

Once you have found the report, click Add. A tab will open on the right-hand side where you will need to fill in the information fields for your buyer persona. These include a picture, brief description, name, goals, roles, challenges and more. Save the profile and you can refer to it at any time to develop your marketing campaigns.