Feb 25, 2019
Tales of A Budding Netpreneur (Entry 11)
Introduction
After a quiet weekend and the whole nation deciding on who would lead us, the tales of a budding netpreneur continues. Not to be perturbed, Aba was as quiet as a mouse, where I stay by the way but my thoughts were not. I was deep in thought trying to understand what has been taught so far especially on the slack channel. I just need a little faith and more work, I’m so gonna get the hang of it.
Today’s class was quite interesting as it took quite a turn. We were taught how to effectively develop our buyer persona. This was handled by our Field Captain, Ezinne Uzoije
Buyer Persona
A buyer persona (a.k.a. “customer avatar”) is a fictional person who represents a particular company’s ideal customer. The purpose of creating a buyer persona is to get crystal clear on the individuals who you are marketing to (https://optinmonster.com)
The advantages of the buyer persona are;
- It helps one to know the target audience to create content for.
- It helps one to know the ideal customers within the sales process.
- It enables the marketer know the problems of the prospects.
- It also enables us know the type of content to be created and for the specific people it would have tailored to.
These reasons show the importance and the relevance of a buyer persona. A buyer persona should bear the following;
- Background
- Demographics
- Identifiers
- Goals
- Challenges
- Common Objectives
- Value Proposition
- Marketing Message and
- Elevator Pitch.
All these have questions embedded within them. These questions enable the service provider to have an insight into the kind of customers he/she intends to have and enable him to channel his time, energy and resources towards them.
Steps to Creating A Buyer Persona
- Conduct a customer or a prospect survey: This survey could be carried out in any men’s or method. examples are:
- Calls
- By Analyzing the Competitor’s Customers
- Via chats or one-on-one
- Skype
- Email subscribers
- Social media followers
2. By conducting an Online Research: It’s not just enough to make calls and such. You need to have a feel of the daily activity of your prospects. This can be done through the use of the various social media platforms such as LinkedIn(for professional research), Instagram, Facebook and Twitter (for personal understanding). The aim of the research is to provide an in-depth feel of your prospects and not just a surface feel of them. This prevents us from running into complications in the future.
3. Use the Customer Avatar Questions: This involves asking likable questions and having certain ideas that the prospect might ask and know. example; if he can afford your services, his location, his religion and so much more.
4. Employ the use of Buyer Persona templates and tools: This can be done using various tools such as
- Xtensio’s User Persona Creator
- Digital Marketer’s Avatar Template
- Demand Metric’s Buyer Persona Template
- Hubspot’s Buyer Persona Template
- Marketo’s Marketing Persona Cheat Sheet
Practical Session
At the end of the class, we were given a task to prepare our own buyer persona and an excerpt of mine is given below;
Name: Isabel George
Field: Banking and Finance
Background
Sex: Female
Nationality: Nigerian
Demographics
Age: 27–45
Occupation: Banker
Marital Status: Married with 2 kids( 10 and 8)
Location: Sub-urban
Character: Dynamic
Personality
- Dynamic
- Extrovert
- Calm
- Optimistic
- Flexible Thinking
Social Media Preference:
- Email subscriber
Goals
- To be at the top of the corporate ladder
- To look classy even as a mother and a career woman
- To start my own business
- To attain the highest certification as a banker
Common Objectives
- Buying Shoes worth N8000, What do I gain?
I stand to gain and enjoy quality shoes that are also affordable. This way i spend less on repairs and maintenance of the said shoes. This purchase gives me value for my money.
What is the difference in service that i get for someone who buys shoes worth N16,000?
- Quicker delivery of the shoes to the person’s choice of destination
- Early alert for discounts and other benefits.
- Customized choice of shoes
Marketing Message: I am a shoe maker.
Elevator Pitch: The Footwear Academy is a training institute and a producer of high quality shoes that are affordable. These shoes are made in Aba and exported to the various parts of the world. No matter your taste in shoes, we have always got you covered.
This concludes my tale for today. As I write down my thoughts, I am certain that someone reading this post would be motivated to doing something other than the ordinary. Why? Because ordinary is boring. Remember that Albert Einstein said ‘creativity is intelligence having fun’.
So, go have some fun today! Just like I did.
