A buyer persona is a true representation of your ideal customer. Giving a personality to your potential customers and defining their demographic information, psychographics, goals, and challenges help you understand your audience better.
This allows you to gain valuable insights about real people and helps you find more effective ways to engage and interact with your customer base. For a detailed understanding of what is buyer persona and things to keep in mind while creating one, read our pillar page blog on buyer persona.
Let’s have a look at some customer persona examples to understand how a marketer should narrow down their target audience. These target persona examples will include b2b buyer persona examples, healthcare buyer persona examples, and a gen Z buyer persona.
Buyer persona example for a D2C business
A D2C business is when the brand directly sells its products/services to the customers without any involvement from the middleman. To form a connection with customers, the company has to create a purpose and stand out from its competitors.
With D2C, you are targeting a group of people by understanding ‘one buyer’. You have to think about who your customer is. What do they like/dislike? Which places do they visit? What are their habits?
Let’s understand this through an example.
Claire - The calculative coffee lover
Claire is a 20-year-old intern at an advertising agency whose work-from-home routine doesn’t begin without her cup of coffee. She lives alone in a small apartment and likes visiting coffee shops to work and interact with new people.
She is super active on Facebook, Instagram, and other social channels. She likes hanging out with her friends. She has a limited salary, which is why she prefers shopping when there are deals and discounts. Her pain points include not being able to travel often and the task of finding a new cafe every day where she can go, work and enjoy coffee.
Through Claire’s example, we realize she is an extrovert who loves coffee and new places. Her decisions are driven by a limited supply of money.
As she prefers deals and discount coupons, reaching out to her through social media with 'free first coffee’ promotions would be a great way to get your coffee shop on her radar.
In this D2C marketing strategy, you must have observed the persona is more focused on personal likes and dislikes than professional interests.
Buyer persona example for a healthcare insurance company
Buying healthcare insurance isn’t an easy task. It requires a deep understanding of the terms and conditions of the insurance. It would be safe to say that the target audience for a healthcare insurance company would be someone who is earning and is over 25 years of age.
In the following example, let’s assume you’re trying to sell healthcare insurance to Mary.
Mary - The mindful insurance customer
Mary, a 33-year-old working professional, wants to invest in healthcare insurance for her infant. Being a mother and a team lead in the office, she juggles responsibilities.
Her priority is to keep the family happy and healthy, which is why she doesn’t want to make uninformed choices. She has browsed through a couple of health insurance websites but isn’t getting the time to pick one that suits her.
In Mary’s example, it is clear that she is a cautious buyer who will only invest in a purchase that benefits her family. She is skeptical about making decisions and is highly focused on her immediate tasks at hand.
As a marketer, you can approach her with crisp and clear communication with easy CTAs so that she can understand everything in a short span of time. You can find ways to convince her of a home visit for personal assistance.
Buyer persona example for a B2B business
Creating a persona for a B2B business is more detailed as it involves focusing on professional goals, interests, and challenges over personal interests. While creating a B2B persona, you’ve to evaluate whether the person is a decision-maker or not and if they have an influence on others.
Let’s go through an example of a b2b buyer persona.
Jay - The overworked Project Manager
Jay, a 34-year-old project manager in a tech firm, spends most weekends building marketing strategies and sales processes. He is not active on social media except LinkedIn and frequently checks email. His goal is to deliver qualified leads to the sales team, thereby generating revenue for the company.
He is a decision-maker for his team but is answerable to his seniors. He wants to upskill and learn about tools that help him find better leads but doesn’t have time to read guides or get familiar with the tools.
Through this example of customer persona, we can see that the focus is more on Jay’s professional aspects. Here, we don’t have an idea about his personal life. However, if you want, you could identify and add a thing or two about it, as well.
Jay comes across as someone who is proactive and results-driven but is overworked. As a marketer, you can connect Jay with tech-savvy LinkedIn influencers or business coaches who can help him upgrade his skills.
Buyer persona example for marketing agency
Content marketers provide services to clients that are creative and essential. Now, if you are a marketing agency owner looking to create a persona for a content marketer, you could take cues from the following example of a user persona.
Tom- The exhausted marketer/founder
Tom is a freelance content marketer who has eight years of experience and handles multiple clients at once. He has two interns working under him and his day goes by in Zoom calls, writing, ideation, and managing his interns.
He ends up wasting a lot of time managing and editing their work, which doesn’t leave him time to look for more clients. To add to the challenges, he has to raise invoices and manage data manually, which are becoming humongous tasks.
Through Tom’s persona, we understand his work life is frantic at the moment. He is capable of working and handling a team, which means he could be a good fit for the agency. But due to lack of time, he isn’t finding the right opportunities.
With the marketing of tools that automate his managerial processes, he could be aided to utilize his capabilities better.
Buyer persona example for gaming industry
The gaming industry is hugely dominated by males. It attracts thrill, speed, and the desire to win. Gen Z is particularly intrigued by the gaming world and is willing to explore it as a serious career path.
However, a casual gamer would have motives different from a cloud gamer and vice-versa. In the following example, let’s assume you’re selling a game to an online gamer.
Ezra - The carefree gamer
Ezra is a 20-year-old college student who learned how to play games online and is now thinking of vlogging his journey. He has won a few gaming competitions online, follows all the ace gamers on social channels, and wants to get a blue tick on his channels too.
His mother keeps urging him to keep gaming aside and think about a serious career. He wants a gaming room for himself, but his pain points include not being able to convince his parents for the same.
Ezra is a quintessential persona of a gen-z gamer who is passionate yet carefree. He comes across as a tech-savvy, smart individual in a hurry to achieve success in life and highly influenced by the ‘cool’ world of gamers. For a gaming company, influencer marketing is the best way to target him as he is likely to follow the trends.
Buyer persona example for a travel agency
The travel industry has seen a massive rise in recent times. Whether it be for work or leisure, traveling has become much easier, as browsing and booking are only a few clicks away. In the following example, let’s assume you are selling your traveling services to a frequent work traveler.
Lucy - The frequent work traveller
Lucy is a 35-year-old working mom who frequently travels for work. She prefers convenience and comfort, and the price is not a factor. Due to work commitments, she makes last-minute bookings and doesn’t have time to browse the best options.
She usually asks someone in the office/her son to book tickets for her. She wants a travel solution that is quick, easy to compare, and full-proof.
Through Lucy’s persona, we understand the time-sensitive nature of her travel. She doesn’t have the time to book her tickets on her own online. She wants to explore them but is too busy to try something new.
As a marketer, you can approach this target customer through phone calls as she wants to save time and effort.
Buyer persona example for furniture e-commerce store
Online shopping has been the preferred option for many decades, and its prevalence is only increasing by the day. The massive variety, deals, offers, and ease of buying from the comfort of one’s home attracts customers. Let’s understand the apt strategy for an e-commerce store through an example:
Phil - The picky online buyer
Phil is a 32-year-old working professional recently married and has moved into an apartment. He wants to set up the house with furniture and decor that is functional, easy to assemble, and within budget, but not finding the appropriate piece is his challenge.
He is picky when it comes to buying and wants to make an informed decision. He likes inviting guests over and discussing his opinions with close friends.
Phil comes across as skeptical and introspective. He is a people person who is influenced by his peers and wants to create influence in return. He is not the one to make compromises on his wants.
Marketers should tap into influencer marketing for this customer persona and show ads on social media that highlight his requirements for budget-friendly functional furniture.
Conclusion
These marketing persona examples are just a handful of ways to funnel the target audience. To ensure your audience engages with your brand, you have to understand their challenges and pain points and figure out ways to fill those gaps.
The more you know about your prospective audience, the better marketing strategies you can devise, leading to conversion and growth in sales.
There are many templates and tools as well that can help you create your brand’s buyer persona. Read this Scalenut blog on buyer persona tools and templates that will help you create marketing personas for your business