Obtaining and retaining customers is essential to a successful business.  But where do you find these customers?   Specifically, who is your clientele?  Who could be interested in your product or service? The best way to find answers to these questions is to research buyer personas.

Buyer personas (also called audience or customer persona) serve as a basis for creating marketing content and business processes that target your ideal customer.   Personas describe your ideal customer in such a way that they paint a picture of your preferred customer’s profile.   As a result, companies that utilize buyer personas become more customer-focused and tailor key business operations to serve their customers better.

Buyer Persona Attributes

To create a persona, gather demographic, psychographics,  and sociographical information about your target customer.  Here are some questions to help you target your ideal customers:

How to Use Buyer Personas

With your listing of attributes that best describe your target customer, you can then use Data Axle (formerly Reference USA) to compile a list of consumers and businesses that match the attributes of your buyer persona.  Data Axle is an extensive, easy-to-use research database with millions of records that can be useful for identifying new prospects and maintaining existing customers.