For those who don’t know, a buyer persona is a fictitious representation of an ideal customer. Modern marketers use buyer personas to tailor marketing and advertising campaigns to match customer preferences and attract “ideal” leads. However, in order to form a buyer persona in the first place, businesses need to reach out to their current customer base for information. And the key to developing effective buyer personas often relates to the quality of questions a business chooses to ask in surveys and interviews. In short, businesses need to pose insightful, pertinent questions to determine what type of consumers are drawn to their brand and what they can do to cater to them further. Here, we’re going to list four different buyer persona questions that professionals can use to really get to know their customers, and ultimately, market more effectively to them as a result:
Who Are You?
Unsurprisingly, the best way to start forming a buyer persona is to determine –– on a base level –– who your ideal customers are. So asking questions about gender, age range, marital status, and income level will help establish the type of person your product appeals to. Other questions that can help you determine what your customers are like include:
- What are your hobbies/interests?
- Where are you from?
- Do you have any children?
What do You Do?
Once a marketer has a feeling for who the customer is, the next line of questioning should seek to determine what they do. This should go beyond simply identifying the company they work for and their job title. (Though, both of those tidbits of info can prove invaluable.) The best customer interviews should provide more depth. Consider asking questions about their role within a company. Who is their boss? Can they make purchase decisions for their company on their own or do they need to seek approval first? How long have they been in their current position? These questions will allow marketers to have a clearer picture of the type of consumer they’re dealing with.
What’s the Problem?
Successful products solve a problem. As such, it makes a lot of sense for businesses to ask about the challenges that their consumers face on a daily basis. What frustrates them about their job, their home life, their relationships, and their ambitions? If a business can isolate a problem that many of their customers share –– and adequately address it –– then success (if not outright prosperity) will be sure to follow.
What Do You Want?
Of course, sometimes the best way to form a buyer persona is to go the direct route. More often than not, customers are happy to tell businesses what they want/need/expect from a product or service. Note, interviewing “bad” or dissatisfied customers is also a good idea because it will allow your company to learn and improve based on feedback, as well as develop personas it can actively work to exclude from its marketing efforts.
Final Thoughts
Professionals can decide to ask their customers a limitless number of questions in order to form buyer personas. Yet, simply using these four template questions will likely help you achieve the same goal with minimal stress. At Agile & Co., we’re marketing experts and we regularly help our clients form buyer personas, create better campaigns, and generate more leads. Contact us here to get started or, for more information about our unique, agile approach check out our free eBook:
