A
buyer persona is a representation of your company's ideal customer.
If you've been preparing your strategy correctly, you've done the research into the industry and the roles your product or service would fit best. You know whose problems you are looking to solve and where to find them.
You can even take it further and work with multiple ideal customer profiles or ICPs. After all, it is possible your product or service solves many problems and you can approach a variety of audiences. And the corresponding messaging should always reflect this as well by being varied and distinct according to the audience you are focusing on.
A buyer persona takes this ICP and then helps craft your ideal customer. Often they will be given a fictitious name, picture, and basic demographic information such as age, gender, occupation, and psychographic information, such as values, interests, and goals.
The idea is that by crafting this persona and utilizing this information the messaging is even more pointed and reflective of the values and issues your prospects have.
A SaaS buyer persona takes it one step forward.
It is not limited to age group, demographics, likes, and dislikes. The goal is to understand how a customer thinks, feels, and behaves. This helps reveal what they want from your product or service so that you can understand your potential buyer's mindset and motivation, and focuses on how your SaaS would fit their needs.