Target Audience Vs Buyer Persona

What Is A Target Market?

Traditionally, when business owners come to research their customer base, the typical term used is “Target Audience.” It's important to reach as many people as possible, but it is even more important to not waste your time! This is why it is imperative that you focus your attention on the demographic of people most likely to be interested in your product or service.

One way to learn more about your target audience would be to provide an offer in exchange for your customers filling out a data gathering form. This could be 10% off their next purchase, and all you have done is pay a small price for some extremely valuable information. From this market research practice you may learn things such as the average age, the occupations, and the geographical locations of your consumers to name just a few.

Then, the question is; what do you actually do with this information?

In order for people to be attracted to your product or service, they must relate to the message and tone that you are putting out. Creating a personal connection with your customers and building trust by getting on their level, for example through social media marketing or through blog articles, is what is going to ultimately get you that profit.

What Is A Buyer Persona?

A Buyer Persona is a fictional representation of your ideal customer, stimulating a real person, and depending on the nature of your audience, you can have a varied amount of personas. However, the general rule is three to four.

The importance of identifying your buyer persona is more often than not overlooked by businesses as a whole, as 17% of marketers struggle for a single view of the customer across their organisation, and only 29% think half of their organisation can describe their buyer personas.

A buyer persona is not just the description of your consumer, it is a magnified, more detailed description that helps you attract more buyers like them. The information gathered can help you customise different marketing campaigns to relate to different buyers.

Personas help you better understand what your customers are:

• Thinking
• Feeling
• Concerned about
• Hoping
• Expecting
• Planning
• Believing

How Are They Different?

Initially you may think your Target Audience and Buyer Personas are very similar, but there are a lot more differences between them than what first meets the eye.

Buyer personas are much more detailed than the target audience. For example they could include the person's typical daily routine, even as precise as what time they wake up in the morning!

The target audience may be identified as 'parents of young children in Derbyshire,' but the persona identifies the finer details such as 'parents of girls under the age of three in Derbyshire.' See the difference?

The target audience would stop at; 'parents of young children in Derbyshire' and be done with it. However, the buyer personas would not just stop at 'parents of girls under the age of three in Derbyshire,' they would go into further detail of their goals, challenges, and pain points. The beauty of knowing this information means you will begin to learn how to trigger an emotional response and make them see how your product or service can help them. The buyer persona is about going just that bit further to understand who your customers are in order to expand your business.

Hopefully this article has helped differentiate the features of a Target Audience and Buyer Personas! If you have any queries, please comment below or call us on 01332 343281 for an informal chat.