The hallmark of effective marketing content is its ability to guide target customers along a buying journey. Irrespective of the distribution channel or format employed, effective content reflects an understanding of the background, motivation, and challenges of potential buyers. Yet, fostering this understanding among content creators, enabling them to produce the right content, can be tricky and cumbersome. This is why developing buyer personas prior to content production can be extraordinarily helpful.

A buyer persona is a fictional profile of an ideal customer for a specific product or service. A persona is the embodiment of the demographics, goals, and reservations of real customers within a broader audience. Once a complete persona has been created, marketers gain clearer insights into their content consumers. They understand why their target customers need the content, what they expect to gain from it, and more.

While this may seem simple, many businesses struggle to pinpoint which customer attributes are relevant. These business serve customers from many different backgrounds and aim to encompass every conceivable attribute, often resulting in overly broad and impractical personas. You should remember that buyer personas depict individuals, not stereotypes or generalizations. If a persona doesn’t reflect a real person, it won’t serve its intended purpose.

I’ve put together a series of questions businesses should answer when crafting personas. Clearly documenting the answer to each question will result in a complete persona that aids content development. Let’s begin!

Background and Demographic Buyer Persona Questions

1. What is the customer’s name? – use a real name.
2. What is their age? – use a real age.
3. What is their highest level of education? – high school, bachelor’s, master’s degree, etc.
4. What is their gender? – male, female, etc.
5. What is their family status? – married, single, raising a family, widowed, etc.
6. What is their income level? – use a real income
7. Other lifestyle info? – ex. frequent traveler, vegetarian, activist, religious, etc.

Goals and Motivation Buyer Persona Questions

1. What is their primary goal? – this should describe the problem they are seeking to solve or what they need to accomplish through your solution.
2. What are their secondary goals? – rarely does a customer have a single reason for selecting a solution to a problem, usually they have other concerns they would like to address?
3. What do they value? – personal/professional values are often reflected in purchasing decisions.
4. What motivates them? – things that drive the customer to act.

Challenges, Resistance, and Objection Buyer Persona Questions

1. What problem(s) do they currently experience? – this is why they need a solution.
2. What obstacles do they face in solving their problem? – it’s critical to know what you might need to help them overcome.
3. Why would they consider your competitors? – know what’s compelling about other solutions.
4. Why would they reject your solution? – anticipate objections before they occur.

Solution Buyer Persona Questions

1. Which product(s) solve their problem? – what we want them to buy from us.
2. How does our product help them meet their goals? – reflect on the customer’s motivation.
3. How do we help them overcome obstacles? – our selling points should confront resistance.
4. How do we compare to competitors? – uncover blindspots and opportunities.
5. What makes us unique? – price, quality, and features may apply.

Marketing Buyer Persona Questions

1. How do we describe our product to the persona? – the elevator pitch.
2. What resonates the most with the persona? – features and attributes that matter the most.
3. What about our product offers the most value to the persona? – something that inspires confidence.

Conclusion

Although there are lots of questions to consider, time spent crafting buyer personas is a worthwhile endeavor. Personas have the power to shape content strategy and illuminate the considerations that truly matter to target customers. Furthermore, they provide structure for content needs and even help accelerate creation efforts with practical requirements.

If you struggle to develop buyer personas or apply personas to a content strategy, Riviea can help. Simply visit our contact page to get in touch with us today.

Bonus: Free Buyer Persona Worksheet

I’ve put together a worksheet to help you develop buyer personas for your products and services. Click to download a PDF version of our buyer persona template. Share it or modify it as much as you’d like. If you’ve found value in the template, let me know in the comments.