A template for creating Buyer Personas

When creating a Buyer Persona it is necessary to go beyond his profile, where by profile we mean the demographic, sociographic elements, related to education, company role, spending power, to instead go deeper, investigating new factors and unknown, to find out how, when and why the purchasing decision that we want to direct with our marketing and communication activities is made .

The Insight model is based on the interviews we carry out with the company's customers and with those who have evaluated the product/service, but then have not purchased. It is a useful working tool for identifying and organizing information useful for the analysis and understanding of the Primary Buyer Person.

It includes everything you need to know to understand the potential customer, to empathize with him and establish a relationship of trust that is crucial for us to choose.

It is structured on 3 levels :

• 4 Insights of the potential customer
• 2 elements that influence the Buyer's purchase decision
• 4 phases of the Purchase Process

The 4 Insights also allow you to segment potential customers based on the differences in needs, expectations, resistances they have and what they want to hear from us.

They help us better direct marketing and sales activities because they provide the right information to influence their purchasing decisions.

The 4 insights of our model.

Urgent needs

Urgent Needs describe the situations that lead potential customers to seek a solution like the one our company offers.

They have a problem or need that they perceive as pressing and for this reason they spend time and resources to find a solution and/or a counterparty that solves these problems or needs.

Urgent Needs also tell us whether people or external factors are driving research and what makes a problem so urgent that it instills commitment to seek a solution like the one we offer.

Expected results

This Insight describes the operational and personal results that the Buyer Persona hopes to obtain by purchasing a solution like ours.

It tells us, for example, what outcomes and what positive consequences this potential customer expects, how he measures his success in having purchased the product or service.

In case the Buyer Persona is actually a B2B sector buyer, the Expected Results also tell us what he thinks will change in his company after making this purchase.

Barriers to Purchase

This is negative insight; it tells us what is wrong with our solution or our company.

From the words of the potential buyer emerge the reasons why our product or service does not meet his needs, why he prefers to opt for a competitor's solution or why he decides not to buy at all and to remain in the status quo.

Decision Criteria

Thanks to this Insight we can identify which specific product, service and/or company elements the potential customer evaluates when choosing whether to buy from us or from our competitors.

The decision-making criteria mainly concern the benefits of the product/service ; if the characteristics of our solution meet the needs of the potential customer, he will hold it in greater consideration than that of other players and in the selection process he will win the game by bringing a new customer to the company.

The 2 Influencers who influence the Buyer's decision

People

This is the element that allows you to understand if there are other people , in addition to the Buyer directly interested and object of the study of the Buyer Person, who are involved in the purchase decision and with whom he compares ; it also informs of the decision-making weight that this eventual other subject has on the purchasing process and in which phases.

Sources of information

This second conditioning element is useful for understanding where and how potential customers get the information they need to evaluate the options available to them.

It is particularly useful for better managing all communication channels , from institutional to advertising ones.

The 4 phases of the Purchase Process + 1
[Buyer's Journey]

The purchasing process can be divided into 4 steps, followed by an additional phase:

Triggers

The Trigger moment is when an internal stimulus within the company, the person, or external to them induces the Buyer to start a search for a product or service.

This first phase is the one that kicks off the whole decision-making process and can be conditioned by various factors.

It is important to know it in order to understand what stimulates a need, how it is possible to intervene to provoke it and through which communication channels.

Research

The Research phase is the one that allows the Potential Customer to identify the solutions available to him.

In this period he searches online and offline for companies, products or services to evaluate for purchase and begins to collect information through traditional and digital channels, consulting the websites of potential suppliers, reading, discussing with colleagues and requesting information directly from companies.

Assessment

In the Evaluation phase, the Potential Customer sifts through the various options he has found, examines them one by one according to his needs , his perceptions, what he learns as he delves into the subject.

In this period of time the Buyer reads, consults various sources, meets the sales representatives of the companies he is considering, listens to the opinions of the people around him in the working and personal environment.

In essence, he creates his own evaluation criteria which will then flow into the decision-making ones.

Decision

The Decision phase is the final one of the Purchasing Process; it is the moment in which the Buyer decides which solution to buy after having searched and evaluated the options available to him.

This moment is decisive because it decrees which product/service will be purchased and therefore which company will acquire the customer .

The People and Sources of Information who take part in this step of the Buyer's Jurney are extremely important because they can decree the final winner among the competitors in the competition; for this reason it is necessary to know what happens in this phase and act to guide the purchase decision in such a delicate and crucial moment.

Usage

Once the need to purchase a solution has emerged, the Buyer begins to search for products and services that are useful for his purpose; as he seeks out and consults sources, he begins to evaluate the options available to him and gradually to discard those that do not satisfy him, until he makes a final decision.

The process can be conditioned by the Persons who directly or indirectly participate in the purchase decision and by the Sources of Information that they consult over time.

A final phase, subsequent to the decision-making process, is that of using the purchased product or service.

The interest in deepening it is linked to the desire to investigate the satisfaction with the choice made by the Buyer.

This is useful to build customer loyalty, if acquired, or to get useful information on what is most appreciated about the competitor product if the interviewee has not opted for our solution.

Conclusions

This tool is also useful as a guideline to identify how many Buyer Personas our company needs to direct its marketing activities.

With this criterion, segmentation does not take place on the basis of socio-demographic elements, but of factors related to the decision-making process with a consequent focus on insights rather than on other factors related to the profile of the Buyer Persona.

In fact it brings out the Primary Buyer Persona, which incorporates patterns common to the interviewees and which helps to pursue the central strategy for the company.

From the interviews, then, several Scenarios emerge relating to Secondary Buyer Personas, very useful for content marketing and storytelling.