Building Buyer’s Persona with Quantitative and Qualitative Research

Quantitative research most often conducted via online surveys is the low-effort way to gather information from a large sample of customers. The large sample size ensures and provides confidence that the data is representative of the customer base. 

Using quantitative surveys you can gather customer information to create a general profile of your customers. You can ask demographic or behavioral questions to identify shared characteristics. You can use ratings to ask customers how satisfied they are with your services. Or, ranking scale to ask them to rank their needs and expectations from your company. 

From the collected data you can filter and group customers based on common characteristics. By grouping them together you can define and validate the buyer’s persona. You can create a realistic persona based on factual data collected from real customers. 

You can refer to your customer database to scoop out quantitative information that your company has already collected based on its relevance. You can also use social channels to gather such data. LinkedIn is one channel that is particularly famous to have a large database of authentic customer information. You can gather the elements of the buyer’s persona from the platform.

It is logically impossible to meet the needs and expectations of each and every customer or can you resolve everyone’s concern. You have a target audience that builds a persona that helps you address their needs and problems. It helps focus on the expectations of the profitable customers. It can help to resolve major issues that are causing the most trouble and provide a solution that responds to a larger audience. 

• Conduct quantitative and qualitative research to gather a broad amount of information on your audience. 
• Look for characteristics that are relevant and common among the customers. 
• Organize the elements of persona into segments that are representative of your target audience. 
• Classify the groups into rough personas. Identify 3 to 5 buyers’ persona based on the characteristics. 
• Develop an appropriate persona with relevant and serious information. Don’t include too much personal data; focus on motivations, values, and expectations. 

To summarize,

Developing a buyer’s persona is important for a business to provide products/ services that respond to them. It also helps your opportunity to identify the challenges faced by your customer base. Having a well-defined persona of your target customers helps you to align decisions to the problems that customers face. 

Quantitative and qualitative research can ensure the quality of your buyer’s persona and help you refine it with reliable information. Qualitative research can help you see through customers’ POV and provide detailed information on the challenges, expectations, and needs of your target audience. Quantitative research can gather validated information from a large sample size ensuring that your buyer’s persona represents your target audience.