Marketers know they need to understand their customers, but standard demographics are no longer enough says Justin Gray, whose post on Marketing Profs outlines Four Tips for Building Fail-Proof Buyer Personas. Gray recommends going through a persona exercise to identify three to five customer "personalities" in order to get to know your buyers better. His process is to give targets an identity, map out their workflow, nail down their pain, and then anticipate their questions and provide answers.

We use the same process at Smartt to help our clients understand the functional and emotional needs of their potential customers. We incorporate information including our client's customer data, customer surveys, and third party research to discover the goals, skills, attitudes, and behaviour patterns of their buyers. The resulting personas allow us to tailor the messaging, marketing techniques, and user experience to increase engagement and improve communication between our clients and their customers. By understanding their buyers, our clients are better able to address their customers' needs and increase the ROI of their marketing projects.

Read Gray's full post at MarketingProfs.com.