Buyer Personas. Revella Adele

      Marketers hoping to interest Jim in their logistics services using his Buyer Profile template won't find much useful intelligence here. Instead they would need to use this profile to imagine (guess?) how Jim would respond to their messaging when sitting at his desk.

      It's difficult to imagine how this approach to buyer personas will help marketers of logistics solutions know what they need to do to help Jim see their solution as a perfect fit for his needs. Furthermore, it is unlikely that this company's marketers will use this tool to persuade their internal stakeholders that a different approach to their messaging and marketing activities will set their merchandise or services apart from their competition.

      Buyer Profiles will not transform this marketer's ability to think like Jim. But suppose you knew what Jim is looking for when he is considering signing a contract with a new provider, why he has been dissatisfied with other providers in the past, and a score of other specific details about how Jim makes his decision. And suppose that these actionable details are things that neither you, nor your own salespeople, nor the competition has ever heard before.

      Too often, Buyer Profiles are nothing more than an attractive way to display obvious or demographic data. Defining markets based on demographics – data such as a person's age, income, marital status, and education – is the legacy of 60 years of selling to the mass market.

      When large-circulation magazines and network television were marketing to the public en masse, demographics helped them create market segments that could be targeted by their advertisers and program managers. Many companies, especially those that market retail consumer products, still rely on demographics to define their markets.

      Yet such distinctions can be irrelevant, if not misleading, when applied in many instances of persuasive marketing. Since marketers have been using demographics for generations to define and segment their buyers – often with very productive results – it requires some attention to realize they are not the best way to build buyer personas.

      Some marketers will focus on psychographics, another long-standing approach to segmenting markets based on factors such as personality, values, lifestyles, and opinions. This approach might capture the fact that Jim goes to church regularly, is skilled at managing people, and is challenged by keeping multiple balls in the air. But this information has little bearing on how he will evaluate and choose a logistics management supplier. Combined with a few demographics, you might know the kind of neighborhood he lives in and that he likes to spend time with his family, but you'll still have to guess about what triggers his interest to evaluate your solution, the barriers that prevent him from finalizing the purchase, and which of your advantages will impress him.

      The Buyer Profile has gained a lot of traction because it is a useful tool to help you think about your target buyers as real people, with actual families, typical bosses, and human concerns. For the same reason that we find it far easier to communicate via social media when we have a photograph of a person we have never met in person, the Buyer Profile creates a sense of the human connection with people whom we have never met face-to-face. If you've ever built a relationship with someone through social media, you may have noticed that your first in-person encounter feels a lot like running into an old friend. The photograph and details of this person's job or personal life have likely shaped your interactions and created a sense of intimacy despite the fact that you live and work in very different circumstances.