Basic Guide to Creating a Buyer Persona

“75% of Startups Fail in Mexico……Weak finances, lack of goals, and poor planning among the causes.”

Jair López – El Financiero, January 18, 2016

Starting a business in Mexico is a risky bet: 3 out of 4 businesses fail before reaching two years. What’s stopping them? The lack of a clear strategy. In this article, you’ll discover how building a well-defined Buyer Persona can help you professionalize your marketing efforts and increase your chances of success.

According to a report by the Instituto del Fracaso, part of the Fuck Up Nights initiative, 75% of businesses started in Mexico don’t survive their second year of operations. The main reasons cited are: lack of metrics or objectives (48%), poor planning (44%), problems in execution or failures in the business hypothesis and market opportunities (43%), and insufficient revenue (40%).

In this context, we find that through strategic planning and disciplined execution, we can confront these statistics and ensure the longevity of our businesses.

Long-term planning may seem like a luxury when urgent matters dominate your schedule. But without strategy, growth is difficult. Here we show you how to start with the basics: knowing your ideal customer.

This document is aimed at business owners and executives of small and medium-sized enterprises who have investment capital for their sales and marketing efforts, and it will cover the first steps in creating and using a Buyer Persona as a pillar in professionalizing their overall marketing strategy.

Buyer Persona – Going Beyond Basic Segmentation

One of the first steps in executing an effective strategic plan is identifying who we want to target. Basic segmentation gives us a general snapshot: age, gender, income, location, lifestyle. But today, that’s no longer enough.

Digital channels have raised the bar. General segmentation can easily turn into noise in a saturated market. To stand out, you need precision. This is where Buyer Personas come in: semi-fictional representations of your ideal customer, based on real data.

Let’s look at two examples: a gym and a real estate agency. Through basic segmentation, we might define their target audiences like this:

Basic Segmentation – Gym

• Age: 18–50 years

• Gender: both

• Socioeconomic level: middle to upper-middle

• Location: Mérida

• Monthly income: from $5,000 MXN

• Occupation: any

• Interests: healthy living, physical activity

• Personality: extroverted, friendly

Basic Segmentation – Real Estate Agency

• Age: 35–55 years

• Gender: both

• Socioeconomic level: upper-middle and upper

• Location: Southeast Mexico

• Monthly income: from $30,000 MXN

• Occupation: entrepreneurs or executives

• Interests: investments, gardens, peace of mind

• Personality: analytical, patient

This gives us a base to work from, but if we look at competitor ads, we’ll notice something important: many look too similar. The communication is generic because it’s built on poorly defined audiences.

Gym Ads

Real Estate Ads

As we can see, there are many similarities between the images used. I’m not saying these efforts are wrong—I just want to show that in a saturated market, using only basic segmentation can make you get lost in the advertising noise.

Let’s take one more step and follow our guide to turn those market segments into fully fleshed-out Buyer Personas.

From Segmentation to Buyer Persona

Let’s imagine giving these profiles a face and context. This is how our Buyer Personas are born.

Manager Michelle and Diet Diego

Now let’s define the parameters that will help us understand Diego and Michelle better.

When creating your Buyer Persona, remember that the data you collect should be based on research or reliable client information—avoid relying solely on instinct or guesswork.

The first block of information consists of our clients’ demographic data, and for this we can use many of the same concepts as in basic segmentation.

So, the first block of our Buyer Persona would look like this:

Manager Michelle

• Age: 38 years

• Occupation: Director of operations at a services company

• Income: $35,000 MXN per month

• Marital status: married, two young children

• Lives in Mérida

• Personality: determined, analytical, family-wellness oriented

• Interests: real estate investments, travel, professional growth

Diet Diego

• Age: 29 years

• Occupation: professional in his second formal job

• Income: $10,500 MXN per month

• Marital status: single

• Lives in Mérida, no children

• Personality: energetic, sociable, but somewhat inconsistent

• Interests: watching sports, healthy lifestyle, going out with friends

With these data points, we’re ready to dig a little deeper—meaning that through our communication, we should solve a problem these people have in their lives.

In this block, we’ll define the goals our Buyer Personas want to achieve, the obstacles they may encounter, the alternatives they have to reach those goals, and the solutions our organizations can provide to help them succeed.

Getting to Know Manager Michelle

• Context: Michelle has reached financial stability with her partner. Now she’s looking to invest in a property outside the city to enjoy with her family and diversify her asset portfolio.

• Goals:

  • Find a vacation property that can also serve as a medium-term investment

• Obstacles:

  • Unsure whether to invest in a new home or renovate her current one

  • Unclear information about return on investment

• Alternatives:

  • Buy a timeshare

  • Look for properties in other states

• Value proposition:

  • Annual activity guide to maximize enjoyment of the property

  • Reports on area appreciation and wellness

  • Consulting to decide based on her financial profile and lifestyle

Getting to Know Diet Diego

• Context: Diego works long hours at a computer. At 29, he’s starting to notice his energy levels dropping. He wants to get back in shape, not just to look better, but to feel more confident in his personal life.

• Goals:

  • Lose weight in less than 6 months

  • Feel more agile and improve self-esteem

• Obstacles:

  • Has tried but struggled with consistency

  • Irregular work hours

• Alternatives:

  • Go jogging on his own

  • Gyms closer to his home

• Value proposition:

  • Personalized training plans for people with variable schedules

  • Initial nutritional support to start strong

Fantastic!

high five!

After doing this exercise, we can see how the second block of information gives us context for why our Buyer Personas will buy our services. By defining these points, we can create more focused marketing actions to solve specific problems.

These two blocks make up the fundamentals of creating an effective Buyer Persona. Remember, the more information you can gather about your potential customers, the more successful your campaigns will be.

What Can We Do with This Data?

Creating a Buyer Persona is more than a creative exercise. It’s a tool that allows you to communicate more precisely, connect with empathy, and optimize your marketing budget. Platforms like Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn allow for incredibly detailed audience targeting—but if you don’t know who you’re looking for, all those targeting buttons are useless.

With these clear representations of your ideal customers, you can design messages that resonate, visuals that connect, and offers that meet real needs.

Defining your Buyer Personas well is not optional: it’s the first step to attracting the right customers and avoiding wasted investment.

And as always, thank you for reading.