The 4 Buyer Personas

Did you know there are four different types of buyer personas?  

Yup. They are: spontaneous, competitive, humanistic, and methodical. 

• Spontaneous decision-makers are speedy with their decisions. They read headlines and buttons… and that's about it. 

• Competitive decision-makers are also speedy when making choices, but go a little further, looking at headlines, buttons, numbers and bulleted lists.

• Humanistic decision-makers take their time, looking for compelling stories. These people need to feel something emotionally to make a purchase. 

• Methodical decision-makers will read every single word you write (and your reviews, and probably visit your website and your social media, too) before buying from you.  

Pop quiz time: which one of these four is your typical customer?

Trick question! It really doesn't matter. You're going to have customers who fit into all four of these categories. Often you'll even have multiple in one decision-making group.

There's no way to know who will be looking at your site. So you have to write copy that appeals to all four. 

 This is where most best practices for website copy come from, and why good copywriters won't just write a headline for a page and call it a day. 

Here's a little checklist to help ya do a DIY audit on your copy to see if it's hitting all four personas: 

• do you have catchy headlines & clear subheaders?

• is your button copy persuasive?

• do you have long, flowing copy somewhere on the page?

• do you have bulleted lists somewhere on the page?

• are you hitting on the details as well as the warm-and-fuzzies?

• do you have an FAQ page on your website?

And if DIY it just ain’t your thing, we’re here to help.