A buyer persona is a fictionalized portrayal of your ideal customer, painting a life-like picture of who that customer is.
Even in a niche market, you likely have at least 2-3 specific buyer personas that you can target.
Buyer personas take into consideration more than just demographics, they also include specific needs, behaviours, pain points, lifestyle, etc. as it relates to the solutions your business provides.
In the case of a financial advisor or planner, it considers how your distinct financial services can help address their needs.
The most effective and accurate buyer personas are based on data that has been collected from your existing customers, however, you can also rely on research conducted on your target market.
The more specific you can get, the better!
Why Create Buyer Personas?
Buyer personas are developed for the purpose of establishing your marketing and business development efforts to effectively reach and resonate with your target audience.
They will guide you in creating highly tailored content and messaging that captures the attention of your audience, keeping them engaged so that you stay top of mind.
When in doubt about whether to proceed with any new strategies, you can refer to the persona as a checkpoint before proceeding.
What makes buyer personas effective for your financial advisory business is that they provide a clear picture of the needs, pain points, and difficulties your target audience experiences.
It brings a deeper understanding of potential decision-making factors your prospects may be looking at.
From there, you can tweak your messaging as it relates to the financial services you are offering.
You may also consider creating negative personas (i.e. the opposite of your ideal customer), those that take up your time selling to but never convert or end up having a negative CLV (Customer Lifetime Value) as they cost more to serve than they bring in.
With negative personas, you know exactly who is not worth your time to market to, and it naturally becomes another checklist to check your messaging against.
To get started creating a buyer persona as a financial advisor, first, take a look at your current customer base and what information you have about them that you can analyze.
Some questions to consider as you get started building your first persona:
- What do your current clients have in common?
- Which of your clientele segments are the most profitable for you?
- Which of your clients are the most satisfied with your services?
- Where are your clients coming from? How are they finding you?
- What other information have you captured in your database that can help identify key personas?
If you don’t know the answers to some of these questions, you can start by surveying your existing clients.
There are free tools online that allow you to create, collect, and analyze customer surveys such as SurveyMonkey, TypeForm, or Google Forms.
Consider asking questions such as their overall satisfaction, the effectiveness of their financial goals being met, and the status of financial concerns being considered.
Taking the time to understand who it is that you’ve served and built a meaningful relationship with will provide insight into who you should be targeting next.
As you collect this information, begin to fill in the information on the buyer persona worksheet here. To help you get started, we’ve provided an example of filling in the worksheet below:
.png?width=404&name=Whitepaper%20-%20Website%20Best%20Practices%20-%20Social%20(9).png)
Example Buyer Persona For Your Financial Advisory Business
| PERSONA NAME: | “Roger the Retiree” |
| BACKGROUND | |
| Education: | Undergraduate level |
| Position: | Soon to retire small business owner |
| Marital Status: | Married for 20+ years |
| Kids: | Grown with children of their own |
| DEMOGRAPHICS | |
| Male/Female: | Male |
| Age: | 68 |
| Income: | 70K |
| Geographic Location: | Columbus, Ohio |
| PERSONALITY | |
|
Communication Preferences: |
Over the phone, in-person, mailed letter |
| Investment Style: | Conservative |
| Risk Tolerance: | Low |
| LIFE STAGE | |
| Investment Goals: | Live comfortably while in retirement, travel to see family, spoil the grandkids, leave money to family, etc. |
| Financial Challenges & Pain Points: | Significantly reduced income since entering retirement. |
| MARKETING | |
| Common Objections: |
“I’m already retired.” “I’m not looking to invest aggressively.” |
| Marketing Messaging: | “Retirement planning doesn’t stop when you retire!” |
BONUS! Apply Buyer Personas To Your Digital Marketing Strategy
Once you’ve identified and created one or more buyer personas, and feel confident they represent your target audience, you can start utilizing this information to generate new leads!
You can leverage buyer personas to personalize your online presence to the needs and pain points of your target market to stand out from your competition, capture attention, and keep leads engaged.
In our How-To Guide For Financial Advisor Marketing: Identifying Your Target Audience & Personalizing Your Online Presence, we take you through 5 steps to tailoring your online presence to your target audience. Click here to download the full how-to guide.
