Buyer personas are a semi-fictional representation of a business's ideal clients or target audience. The personas are created by conducting market research and analysing real data about existing customers.
Buyer personas (sometimes called marketing personas), are semi-fictional profiles that represent your ideal prospective donors or members. They’re built using a mix of real data from your existing donors, members and supporters (like demographics, behaviour patterns, goals) and insights from market research. Understanding your personas also helps in service development, providing effective follow-ups and other donor acquisition and retention processes.
Understanding your personas means you can:
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Tailor your messaging to resonate with what donors and members really care about
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Attract the right-fit people (and avoid the wrong ones)
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Improve service and follow-up interactions
How to create a buyer persona:
1. Define your audience
Start by gathering data about your existing donors, members and supporters. This might come from your CRM, surveys, website analytics, or social media insights. Newsletter subscribers and event sign-ups are other valuable sources of information about your organisation's audience. Record measurable information such as demographics.
It’s also useful to look at similar non profit organisations to see any missing target groups or segments. Conducting keyword research (such as Google search terms) will facilitate the persona profile, it allows you to see how prospects conduct their research. Knowing what words and phrases people use will enable you to rank highly by implementing the appropriate tags in content.
2. Outline the audience's pain points
The persona must capture the problems faced by your prospective donors/ members. What problems or barriers do your prospects face when looking to support your organisation? What’s getting in the way of their decision-making? You can find this out through internal conversations (e.g. ask your volunteers or events team about common questions), surveys, or social media monitoring to see what people are saying about you and similar organisations. The data gathered from the internal and external analysis will help identify any patterns in the challenges faced by people considering support your organisation.
3. Outline the audience's goals
Your persona must capture your audiences goals and aspirations. For non-profit organisations, they are usually personal or social goals related to making a positive impact, being part of the group making a difference by improving and giving back to society. The goals should also be directly related to the solutions/ causes you are supporting whenever this is possible.
If the personas goals don’t directly align with what you offer, that’s still useful. You can build marketing messages or campaigns, informing the tone or theme of the approach taken. Goals and aspirations can be identified through social media listening, and the institution's customer service team can also provide insight into customer goals.
4. Outline how your organisation helps
Once the persona's pain points and goals have been identified, the organisation must create a clear picture that showcases how the non-profit can help. Non-profit organisations must focus on the positive impact and the progress made towards the goals or cause, showcasing how the donations were invested and the impact made by the supporters and members. The organisation must consider the audience's point of view and focus on making their donors, members, and supporters feel valued throughout their journey and support for the non-profit.
Once the persona's pain points and goals have been identified, you can create a clear picture that showcases how you can help. You should focus on the positive impact and the progress made towards the goals or cause, showcasing how the donations were invested and the impact made by the supporters and members. Consider your audiences point of view and focus on making your donors, members, and supporters feel valued throughout their journey and support for your organisation.
5. Create the persona profiles
Group your research into distinct audience types. Each persona should feel like a real person- with a name, job title, home, pain points, goals and other defining characteristics to make it seem as real as possible, without getting too specific.
An example of a customer persona would be:
Jolly James
- 40 years old
- Lives in a medium-sized urban area in England
- Works in the family business ran together with his spouse
- Likes to give back to the community and supports local charities
- Has an active social circle, participating in various physical activities or events
- Financially well-off, with an active lifestyle and strong online presence
Not every prospect will match a persona exactly, that’s okay. Personas are about humanising your marketing, not putting people in rigid boxes.
6. Use personas to plan marketing efforts
Once you’ve created your personas, use them to guide your marketing content. Ask yourself:
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Does this blog, ad, or email speak to a specific persona?
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Are we helping them solve a problem or reach a goal?
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Do we show how our organisation provides value?
You might even want to create 5+ pieces of content per persona to demonstrate how your work aligns with their goals.