How to create a Buyer Persona

Learn how to create a detailed profile of your ideal customers' employees.

1. Create a new Buyer Persona

A Buyer Persona is always linked to one Ideal Customer Profile. The Ideal Customer Profile will be used as context for the Buyer Persona to improve the quality of the profile - and ultimately your value propositions, campaigns, and more.

• Navigate to strategy > ideal customers.
• Open the Ideal Customer Profile for which you want to create a Buyer Persona.
• On the right side of the overview tab, click create.

2. Add the job titles of your persona

To write a comprehensive Buyer Persona, our AI needs to know what this person is responsible for. We'll walk you through finding the right job titles for the initiator, using the example of our marketing manager.

It's important to only pick the job titles that are similar to each other.

Do select synonyms for - in this case - the role of marketing manager. For example; online marketing manager, digital marketing manager, and growth marketing manager.

Don't pick job titles that vary too much. In our case, positions such as marketing consultant or SEO marketer may seem related, but they differ too much since they're not management positions.

• Type the job title or specific responsibility related to that role - such as 'marketing manager' or 'manages marketing teams'.
• Click the search button.
• Click add to select job titles that match your search.
• Click the job title or function groups to narrow your search - the underlined text that says marketing manager, marketing or marketing and sales specialists.
• When you've selected at least 6 job titles, click next.

3. Pick the DMU role, name and avatar.

Before you do anything else, it's important to think about the role for which you want to create a Buyer Persona. If it's your first Buyer Persona, we suggest starting with the role of Initiator. This is the person who initiates the purchase of your product or service.

• Click DMU role to open the dropdown menu.
• Select the right role.
• Click the refresh icons to generate a name and avatar.
• Click next when you're done.

Explanation of the different DMU roles

To understand the different DMU roles, we'll give you an example of the Ideal Customer Profile and Buyer Personas we created for Growf.

Ideal Customer Profile

B2B marketing agencies with 10-50 employees.

Initiator

This is the solution seeker. In other words, the person that initiates the purchasing process. In our case, this is usually the marketing manager. 

Decision maker

This is the person who has the final say. Who this is depends on the size of the companies you are targeting, the price of your product and the impact of the purchase.

Since our ideal client profile focuses on smaller agencies (10-50 employees), this is usually the CEO or owner. If we were targeting larger agencies, this would likely be the marketing manager or CCO.

End user

This is an easy one. In our case, the end user is someone in the marketing department. That could range from SEO or SEA experts to growth marketers and content writers. Since those roles vary quite a bit, we decided to create multiple end user personas.

Influencer

This could be anyone who influences the buying process. This can range from CFOs who need to be convinced of the return on investment of your product to IT managers concerned about integration capabilities.

There will be more influencers when the price of your product is high and/or when the purchase of your product impacts their primary process. 

Buyer

The person who has the wallet and authority to complete the purchase. When you're selling something that's as expensive as an ERP system, this will probably be a seperate role. But for a product like Growf, this is usually not a separate role and the marketing manager - in rare cases the CEO - has the authority to complete the purchase him or herself.

4. Write the bio

The next step is to write the biography of this Buyer Persona. This biography paints a picture of who this persona is.

• Click start the magic to generate the biography.
• Check the description and edit if necessary.
• Click next.

5. Describe the activities, pains and gains.

Activities in a buyer persona refer to the specific tasks, actions, or responsibilities that the persona undertakes in their professional role.

Pains are the challenges, frustrations, or obstacles that the Buyer Persona faces in their role or activities. Gains refer to the goals, aspirations, or benefits that the Buyer Persona seeks to achieve.

The output of our AI will be of the highest quality when the Buyer Persona is comprehensive, so:

Do delete activities, pains, and gains that are incorrect.

Don't delete activities, pains, and gains that are correct, but seem irrelevant. They might still be valuable as context.

• Click start the magic to generate activities.
  • Delete incorrect activities by clicking the x button.
  • Add missing items manually by clicking the + button.
  • Sort items according to relevance.

• Click next.

• Click start the magic to generate pains.
• • Delete incorrect pains by clicking the x button.
  • Add missing items manually by clicking the + button.
  • Sort items according to relevance.

• Click start the magic to generate gains.
  • Delete incorrect gains by clicking the x button.
  • Add missing items manually by clicking the + button.
  • Sort items according to relevance.

• Click next.

6. Craft your value proposition

The value proposition is the heart of all your marketing activities. This describes how your product or service helps your persona. 

The pain relievers represent how you solve your persona's problems, while the gain creators represent how you help your persona achieve their goals and ambitions.

• Click start the magic to generate pain relievers.
  • Delete incorrect pain relievers by clicking the x button.
  • Add missing items manually by clicking the + button.
  • Sort items according to relevance.

• Click start the magic to generate gain creators.
  • Delete incorrect gain creators by clicking the x button.
  • Add missing items manually by clicking the + button.
  • Sort items according to relevance.

• Click finish.

7. Change the publication status

Once you're done, you can change the publication status of your Buyer Persona from draft to published using the dropdown menu in the top right corner.

When the publication status has been changed to published, you'll be able to create campaigns and use the Buyer Persona Chat.