AI Buyer Personas for Beginners

Target audiences, customer segments,  buyer personas, oh my! In today's fast-paced digital marketplace, the most successful businesses share a secret: they keep the customer at the center of everything they do. How?

The answer lies in leveraging data to target audiences, segment customers, and understand their buyer personas to find product-market fit, and create marketing content that resonates. Let's begin with a quick review:

What is a Target Audience?

A target audience is a specific group of people identified as the intended recipients of a marketing message, product, or service. This group shares common characteristics such as age, gender, location, income, or interests.

Let's consider Bark Bits, a fictional dog treat company. Their target audience might be high-income dog owners aged 25-45, who prefer natural, organic products for their pets. How do we know this?

Target Audiences: The Traditional Method

Traditionally, marketers used methods like internal data analysis or market research to identify their target audience. Using our example of Bark Bits, they might have identified their target audience by:

• Brainstorming: Yes, sometimes it is just folks in a room, saying, "I think childless millennials with pets are our target market." Why? Because it makes sense! 
• Market Research & Industry News: Analyze industry reports to identify trends, such as the rising demand for human-grade dog food, fueled by the belief that pets are part of the family, funded by the rise of DINKs (double-income, no-kids).
• Data analysis: Businesses can analyze internal data, such as shipping information, to build an understanding of who enjoys their product. 

How can AI identify target audiences?

AI introduces an element of speed, efficiency, and accuracy to the traditional marketer's toolkit.  Instead of relying on static or limited datasets, AI tools can analyze vast amounts of information in real-time to uncover nuanced and actionable insights about potential customers. For example, Bark Bits can use AI to:

• Brainstorm: Quickly ideate new and novel target audiences you may not have considered previously. AI might suggest, "non-pet owners buying gifts" or "rural animal-lovers who buy in bulk" to Bark Bits.
• Predict Emerging Markets: Utilize AI's predictive analytics capabilities to forecast upcoming trends or shifts in the your industry. For instance, AI might identify a growing interest in specialized diets for senior dogs, allowing Bark Bits to proactively target this emerging market segment before competitors.

Once a business has identified their target audience, they may find they need more nuance to effectively speak to their customers. While Bark Bits may have identified "millennial dog owners" as their target audience, there's a big difference between the Montanan with three Huskies, and the New Yorker with a Bichon Frise. That's where customer segments come in.

What is a Customer Segment?

A subgroup of the broader target audience that shares more specific characteristics or needs. These segments are often divided based on factors like demographics, purchasing behavior, lifestyle, or product preferences.

For our friends at Bark Bits, they may segment their target audience into:

• Urban millennials who live in apartments or condos with one small dog.
• Suburban millennials who live in townhomes or SFHs with medium or large dogs.

Bark Bits can then create specialized marketing campaigns or tailored product bundles for each segment, such as combining small-breed treats with space-saving storage options.

Customer Segmentation: The Traditional Method 

An essential strategy for marketers to tailor their products and messaging to specific groups within their target audience. Traditionally, this process relied heavily on manual data collection and analysis to gain insights into customer preferences and behaviors, including,

• Customer Surveys: Collecting information about dog owners’ needs, preferences, and purchasing habits to identify subgroups within the broader target audience. For example, Bark Bits might discover a segment of pet owners who are primarily concerned about their dog's dental health.
• Data analysis: Reviewing past sales data to find patterns in purchase behaviors. For instance, Bark Bits could identify that customers buying grain-free treats stick to the same products each time, while customers who buy bully sticks order a wide variety.
• Focus Groups: Engaging with dog owners in different categories (e.g., senior dog owners or active dog enthusiasts) to gain deeper insights into what they value in a dog treat.

Customer Segmentation with AI

As technology advances, AI has transformed the way marketers approach customer segmentation, making the process faster, more accurate, and highly responsive to changing consumer behaviors. By leveraging AI, companies like Bark Bits can gain real-time insights into their customer segments with,

• Data Collection and Analysis: AI tools can automatically gather and analyze data from various sources such as your website analytics, social media interactions, and customer purchase history. For a small pet treat business, AI could identify patterns like: customers from urban zip codes tend to sign up for subscriptions of smaller treat packages, while suburban customers prefer to make repeat, individual purchases in bulk.
• Qualitative Analysis: If you conduct customer surveys, AI can quickly analyze responses to open-ended questions, identifying common themes and sentiments that can inform segmentation.
• Social Media Insights: AI tools can analyze social media interactions to gather insights about your customers' lifestyles and preferences, such as: urban millennials are often searching for and posting about dog-friendly cafes or parks, while suburban millennials share content about backyard activities with their pets.

Now that your business has identified a target market, and segmented the customers into distinct groups, there is one more level of granularity that marketers use to create an understanding of their customer: the buyer persona. 

What is a Buyer Persona? 

A buyer persona is a semi-fictional representation of an ideal customer based on research and real data about existing customers. A buyer persona typically includes detailed information like demographics, motivations, challenges, purchasing behaviors, and goals. Marketers sometimes reference to the...

‍Four Types of Buyer Personas

Competitive buyers

Are goal-oriented, analytical, and driven by results. They’re looking for the best value and performance, often comparing products to find the one that meets their specific needs most effectively. They make decisions based on features, benefits, and proven results, and are more likely to conduct thorough research before making a purchase.

Spontaneous buyers

Make quick decisions, often based on emotion or immediate needs. They’re less likely to conduct extensive research and are more influenced by attractive packaging, limited-time offers, or products that seem fun and trendy.

Methodical buyers

Are detailed, cautious, and thorough in their decision-making process. They want to understand all the facts before committing and will spend time reading reviews, comparing products, and evaluating the long-term benefits. They value transparency and need reassurance that they’re making the right choice.

Humanistic buyers

Are relationship-oriented and emotionally driven. They value personal connections, brand stories, and experiences that align with their values. They’re more likely to support brands that share their ethical beliefs, such as sustainability, animal welfare, or community involvement.

Within the target market of "millennials with dogs" and the customer segment of "suburban millennials with medium or large dogs", a buyer persona  might be “California Jim” a 32-year-old professional living in the suburbs with his rescued labrador, who has a litany of minor health problems from sensitive skin to gut issues. Jim happens to be a spontaneous buyer. In this case, Bark Bits could target “California Jim” with video content on social media that offers a limited-time discount for dogs with health issues. 

Buyer Personas: The Traditional Method

Traditionally, the process of creating a buyer persona involved in-depth research and analysis, incorporating insights about their motivations, pain points, and decision-making behaviors. This often included:

• Customer Interviews & Surveys: Gathering detailed information about their lifestyles, challenges, and values to build comprehensive profiles. For example, Bark Bits might interview customers to understand why they prefer organic treats and discover that many are motivated by concerns about artificial ingredients affecting their pet's health.
• Observation & Behavioral Analysis: Observing customer behavior in-store or online to identify patterns in purchasing habits. Bark Bits might notice that certain customers are particularly drawn to eco-friendly packaging, indicating that sustainability is an important factor for this persona.
• Reviewing Customer Feedback: Analyzing reviews, testimonials, and feedback forms to gain insights into what customers appreciate or dislike about your products. This helps identify common pain points and desires, such as a persona that values convenience, freshness, or specific health benefits.

These traditional methods allowed Bark Bits to create detailed buyer personas like “Eco-Friendly Emma,” a pet owner who prioritizes sustainability, or “Healthy Henry,” who focuses on high-quality, nutrient-rich treats for his dog.

Buyer Personas with AI

AI enables marketers to generate dynamic, real-time personas based on vast amounts of data and behavioral insights. This allows businesses like Bark Bits to build and interact with highly detailed profiles that evolves as more data becomes available. Possible ways to leverage AI for buyer personas include,

• Create new personas: Accurately translating large datasets into an easily understood buyer persona takes time and effort. Now teams can quickly and effortlessly generate buyer personas with AI, with free tools and templates such as this Notion AI User Persona Generator. 
• Chat with a buyer persona: AI can assume the personality of your buyer persona and help you gauge which ad headlines, images, or acquisition offers are most appealing, or discover new positioning opportunities. For example, Bark Bits might chat with California Jim and discover that he buys certain treats because they fit in his pocket without crumbling, and responds to the headline "the perfect pocket treat".  Teams can create conversational AI buyer personas with Custom GPTs, or specialized tools such as Delve.
• Real-Time Persona Updates: Unlike static traditional personas, AI-driven personas evolve as new data comes in. For example, Bark Bits could connect their product page reviews or customer service platform with an AI persona to constantly have the most up-to-date representation of their existing customer.

By leveraging AI, marketing professionals can develop more nuanced buyer personas that accurately reflect their customers' evolving preferences, motivations, and behaviors, enabling more personalized and effective marketing strategies that resonate with each type of buyer persona. And today the free tools exist for any business to understand audiences more deeply than ever before.

The future of marketing is here, and it's powered by AI. Are you ready to upgrade the way your business stays customer-centric?