What is a Customer Archetype or "Buyer Persona"?
MARKETING & SALES
Customer Archetypes are built to help brands tailor their messaging and approach to each of the different types of buyers.
They allow them to "put a face" to the buyers they want to attract and make the marketing process more human. In other words, marketing is no longer done on a mass scale, but rather targeted with real individuals in mind.
What is a Customer Archetype or "Buyer Persona"
A Customer Archetype or "Buyer Persona" is a model of a company's ideal customer that is created by studying current customers and developing a profile composed of their needs, desires, values, and behavioral patterns.
Customer Archetypes are built to help brands tailor their messaging and approach to each of the different types of buyers.
They allow you to "put a face" to the buyers that the company wants to attract and makeandr make the marketing process more human. In other words, marketing is no longer done on a mass scale, but rather is targeted with real individuals in mind.
Customer archetypes can guide advertising messages, branding efforts, customer support, and product development.
What makes Archetypes important for marketing?
Customer Archetypes allow to:
Connect emotionally and intellectually with customers
Tailor recommendations, services, and offers to each type of person
Target notices, emails, and other communications more effectively
Create a consistent message
Identify gaps in consumer experience
Discover new consumer segments to target
Provide the marketing team with up-to-date information on consumer desires, needs, and motivations
Just as there are positive customer archetypes, it's also useful to create negative customer archetypes to fine-tune marketing strategies. These are customers similar to positive customer archetypes, but they don't translate into sales for the company.
Excluding these negative archetypes from your target audience can help increase the accuracy and efficiency of your marketing campaigns.
How to create a Customer Archetype/Buyers Persona
These are the steps required to create Customer Archetypes:
1.- Research current consumers
Conduct in-depth customer research, focusing on the most important segments. Initially, it's a good idea to focus on the highest-value customers.
Alternatively, it is advisable to study customers by product category, geographic sector, age, etc.
Information should be collected from both internal and external sources, such as:
Carefully study the data. Basic customer data, such as age, location, average purchase, etc., can typically be found in most CRM (Customer Relationship Management) systems.
Review customer reviews .Analyze both positive and negative comments to better understand customers' pain points, values, and experiences with products. This data can also shed light on brand differentiators from the consumer's perspective.
Consult with the marketing and sales support teams. It's important to consult with team members who interact with customers on a daily basis to understand customers' frequently asked questions, frustrations, preferred product features, and how they use them.
Talk to current customers. Assumptions about customers must be validated or discredited by speaking directly with them. You can conduct a survey, request product reviews, or even conduct telephone interviews.
Check social networks. Follow what customers and prospects are saying about the brand or similar brands on the internet.innea. You should also review what your competitors are saying, gathering evidence from market research they have conducted.
Evaluate competitors' websites. Analyze the customers you target with your messages, pricing, and other content. Read your customers' comments and verify who buys your best-selling products.
2.- Identify data patterns
When reviewing the data, you should identify patterns and shared characteristics that can differentiate certain customers from others. These characteristics can include lifestyle, location, profession, personality, and others.
You can develop multiple Archetypes from the start or start with one primary Archetype and then segment from there.
3.-Create a Customer Archetype template
A template should be created to help organize and display the research results in a single place. It can include the most important specific attributes for the business, such as:
Age
Family income,
Occupation
Education
Interests/hobbies,
Geographic location,
Values
Preferred form of contact
Challenges
Fears
Purchasing patterns
4.- Develop a plan
Once the Customer Archetypes are defined, a marketing strategy can be developed for each channel. Based on this data, it's possible to create higher-quality content that resonates emotionally with potential buyers, helping to build loyalty and generate greater connection.
It is important to carefully review the product pages they are targeted at. As a result of this analysis, it may be decided which Archetypes will receive higher priority.
This process allows advertising efforts to be targeted according to consumer interests, demographics, and behavior.
In the case of physical stores, understanding consumer behavior helps design a store that's easy to navigate and hire employees who can provide the best possible customer experience.
Another advantage is that it allows you to select the channels through which your products can be offered. These will vary according to the characteristics and behavior of your customers' Archetypes.
5.- Measure and optimize
It's important to keep in mind that Customer Archetypes are practically living profiles. As the business grows and trends change, customer preferences also evolve. That's why we must monitor the success of marketing campaigns and update the Archetypes over time.
Examples of Buyer Personas
Let's say we have a sportswear brand. Although all our customers share a common interest in sportswear, they have different backgrounds, purchasing habits, interests, and other characteristics that differentiate them.
Each consumer segment will relate to marketing content differently.
Each Customer Archetype will go further on, but as an example we are going to create some basic profiles:
Buyers Persona 1: Peter the bricklayer
Demographics: 35 year old man, single, construction worker
Location: Fort Lauderdale, Florida
Interests: cycling, soccer
Motivators: price and durability
Personality: competitive, logical
Pedro works hard and likes to do his job well, which he takes pride in. He's very active and spends his weekends exercising. When it comes to sportswear, he values durability and versatility. He usually buys when he sees a good deal and likes to shop in a store to ensure the quality of the merchandise.
Buyers Persona 2: Carolina the athlete
Demographics: woman, 20 years old, single, student
Location: Atlanta, Georgia
Interests: jogging, tennis, volleyball, hiking
Motivators: performance and comfort
Personality: creative, dynamic
Carolina is a very active college student who spends her days between classes, sports activities, and occasionally going on weekend excursions. She has a large amount of activewear that she wears constantly and is always on top of the latest trends in sports fashion, especially stylish clothing with unique features. She likes to shop online, as long as she gets free shipping and can return the merchandise free of charge if she doesn't like it.
Buyers Persona 3: Amelia the traveler
Demographics: woman 32 years old, single, marketing professional
Location: Los Angeles, California
Interests: politics, technology, travel
Motivators: status, convenience, environment
Personality: determined and analytical
Amelia is a young professional who stays up-to-date on the latest trends in her field. She is interested in politics and enjoys traveling, both for business and pleasure. She enjoys shopping online and getting immediate delivery, regardless of paying more for something she wants. She always compares options before making a decision. She prefers luxury brands that reflect her image of success.
Summary
Creating archetypes for each type of customer is an impossible task, but it's helpful to define some of the most important profiles of potential consumers of our products so we can formulate and focus effective strategies that can meet the specific needs of each of them.