Even the best product won't sell if you appeal to the wrong people. What is a sports-hating person supposed to do with a mountain bike or a diabetic person with cotton candy? In marketing, it is therefore important to address the people who are really interested in your products and services.
Buyer persona and target group - is this even necessary?
In order to conduct accurate marketing, you should first think about the people you want to address. The scattergun principle (a little bit everywhere) leads to high wastage, especially in online marketing. However, those who believe they can recognize customers based purely on gut feeling and experience often overlook potential prospects.
Two concepts have therefore become established in marketing that can be used to create tailored content: Target groups and buyer personas. But what exactly does that mean? What are the differences and which concept offers more advantages?
The differences between target group and buyer persona
A target group is a group of people who share certain characteristics. They are categorized, for example, by demographic characteristics such as age, origin or income. However, behavioural characteristics such as "athlete" vs. "couch potato", "tech-savvy" or "thrifty" are also frequently used to further characterize target groups.
The problem with this is that if too few characteristics are determined and too large a group of people are addressed, people fall into one and the same target group who would otherwise never have been lumped together due to opposing characteristics that were not considered.
If you only form a target group according to simple demographic characteristics, instead of a focused group of people, you often end up with a motley bunch of people who don't necessarily have much in common.
For example: male, famous, US-American, 61 years old, covers both former US President Barack Obama and rock legend Bon Jovi, as well as a whole bunch of other people who have very different lifestyles. For some products and services this can work, but for others it would be a disaster. The solution: we need to be more specific.
In order to address potential customers more precisely, buyer personas are often used in marketing. A buyer persona is a fictitious person, a prototype of the perfect customer, so to speak.
In contrast to the target group, a buyer persona is developed in detail, with all the relevant characteristics that are required. As with the target group, this naturally also includes demographic data and life circumstances. However, significantly more emphasis is placed on further details such as
laid out. Images and names are also often assigned to make the buyer persona even more tangible. (There are also said to be companies that print out their buyer persona in life size and place it in the office ...)
Conclusion: Do I need a buyer persona?
While target groups can give a rough impression of people, specifically developed buyer personas bring many advantages in marketing because the level of detail is significantly higher. Potential prospects and customers can be addressed more precisely and their individual wishes and goals can be taken seriously. The tonality, the formats and the touchpoints can also be determined much more precisely with a buyer persona.
Buyer personas therefore enable companies to better adapt their marketing strategies to the specific needs of their customers. The better I know my potential customers, the more targeted I can address them.
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