{"id":74276,"date":"2023-09-06T20:28:13","date_gmt":"2023-09-06T20:28:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mailrelay.com\/glossary\/buyer-persona\/"},"modified":"2026-10-23T07:09:54","modified_gmt":"2026-10-23T07:09:54","slug":"buyer-persona","status":"publish","type":"glossary","link":"https:\/\/mailrelay.com\/en\/glossary\/buyer-persona\/","title":{"rendered":"Buyer persona"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A buyer persona is a semi-fictional representation of your ideal customer, built from real data. It has a name, an age, goals, problems and a way of making decisions, so your whole team knows who they’re talking to.<\/p>\n\n

Instead of thinking about “women aged 30 to 45”, you think about Luc\u00eda, a nurse with little time and sensitive skin. That makes it easier to write an email, choose a channel or decide what content to publish.<\/p>\n\n

What is a buyer persona?<\/h2>\n\n

The term comes from software design. Alan Cooper popularized personas<\/em> in the late nineties as a way to design with specific users in mind, and marketing adopted the idea to describe the people who buy.<\/p>\n\n

A buyer persona brings together four kinds of information. Who they are<\/strong>: demographics and, in B2B, their job title and company. What they want and what worries them<\/strong>: goals, problems and objections. How they research and decide<\/strong>: channels, influences and buying process. And how you talk to them<\/strong>: the message, channels and content that suit them.<\/p>\n\n

You can have several. The usual approach is to start with two or three and add more when you see a group of customers that doesn’t fit any of them.<\/p>\n\n

What’s the difference between a buyer persona and a target audience?<\/h2>\n\n

The two concepts are often confused, but they aren’t the same. The target audience<\/a> is a broad segment of the population. A buyer persona is a specific person who represents part of that segment.<\/p>\n\n

<\/th>Target audience<\/th>Buyer persona<\/th><\/tr><\/thead>
What it describes<\/td>A group of people<\/td>A representative customer<\/td><\/tr>
Type of data<\/td>Demographic: age, gender, location, income<\/td>Demographic, plus goals, problems, habits and motivations<\/td><\/tr>
Example<\/td>Women aged 30 to 45 in Spain interested in natural cosmetics<\/td>Luc\u00eda, 38, shift nurse, sensitive skin, shops from her phone<\/td><\/tr>
What it’s for<\/td>Deciding who you’re targeting<\/td>Deciding what to say, where and how<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n

If you want to learn more about the group, see also marketing audiences<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n

\"Infographic<\/figure>\n\n
\n

Speak to each buyer persona with its own message<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Create a segment for each profile and personalize your emails for free.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n
Create a free account<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n

What is a buyer persona for?<\/h2>\n\n

Having well-defined buyer personas helps you:<\/p>\n\n