Creating buyer personas is like painting pictures of your ideal customers. It’s worthwhile to invest time and effort into creating them in order to help you determine which of your existing customers fit—and which don’t—and to help you identify the best way to reach new prospects.

Make personas seem real
When creating buyer personas, you should make each persona seem as real as possible. Assigning the persona a name and image will help shape who he/she is. Think about this person’s job, career path, family, mindset, communication preferences, media habits and hobbies. Note his/her demographics including age, gender, income and location. And, note what his/her key goals are—as well as obstacles to acting on your call to action (CTA)—plus what your company can do to help them achieve or overcome them, respectively.

Create multiple personas
Your customers are a diverse group and your personas should be, too. Create as many personas as you need—but only make as many as you can back up with research.

Base personas on data
Your persona information shouldn’t be pulled from thin air. It’s important to gather real data so that personas are a representation of your real audience. You can find this data by:

• Surveying existing customers
• Surveying a targeted list of people on social media who are similar to your existing customers in terms of demographics and psychographics
• Creating pop-up surveys on your site about the experience, products and/or company
• Creating a customer panel and talking to customers in person or over the phone