Understanding the personalities of your prospects and customers can help you sell more products and services, and give you a competitive edge.
Although the products and services in your industry evolve over the years, the personalities of your audience stay much the same. That's why your buyers deserve more of your attention than you might think.
The key is learning to recognize different customer personality types. Once you can identify someone's type, you can tailor your communication to build trust and lower their resistance to buying. People prefer to do business with companies that feel like them: a task-driven buyer who gets a long, detail-heavy email simply won't read it, while a detail-oriented buyer who gets a vague, breezy pitch won't trust it. Matching your message to the person is what makes the difference.
4 Types of Buyer Personalities
Broadly, buyers fall into four personality types: thinkers, drivers, expressives, and feelers. Each one processes information, responds to marketing, and makes decisions differently.
Thinkers
Thinkers, also called analytical types, are organized, conservative, and risk-averse. They want facts, details, and examples that prove the value of your product before they commit, and they want to see the credibility behind it. They're numbers-oriented and focused on the bottom line. Of the four types, thinkers are the least likely to buy on impulse, which makes them the hardest to sell a new or unproven product.
Drivers
Drivers are fast-paced and busy, and they want you to get to the point. They like control, independence, and choices, and they're risk-takers focused on immediate results, deciding based on logic, trust, and reality. Make a strong first impression and respect their time.
Expressives
Expressives are big-picture dreamers. They're risk-takers who crave excitement and energy, want to be inspired, and respond to a vision of lofty goals and possibilities. They tend to buy with their intuition and their heart.
Feelers
Feelers, also called amiable types, are friendly, compassionate, and loyal. They like to build relationships and help others, and they're not risk-takers, so they often need reassurance or input from others before deciding. They respond best to empathy and rock-solid guarantees.
How to Identify a Customer's Personality
You'll rarely get a customer to take a personality quiz, so most of the time you infer their type from how they behave, then tailor your approach.
Read their behavior and data
Pay attention to how prospects engage with you. Do they ask for detailed specs and proof, or just the bottom line? Are their messages terse and to the point, or warm and relationship-focused? Do they want to talk big-picture vision or concrete results? Your CRM, email engagement, and site analytics hold plenty of clues, such as which pages they read, which content they click, and how they respond to different messages. Over time, those signals tell you which type you're dealing with.
Let testimonials sort them
Testimonials are a clever, low-effort way to speak to all four types at once. Offer a few short testimonial snippets, each written to appeal to a different personality, and link each one to a fuller story. A snippet packed with facts and figures will draw in a thinker, while one about a warm, supportive experience will resonate with a feeler. Each reader gravitates to the proof that speaks to them.
Advice worth following
Knowing a customer's personality type doesn't guarantee the sale. What matters most is crafting the right message for each type. In other words, understand your customer first, before you expect them to understand your product or service.
If you'd like help turning insights like these into marketing that actually connects with your buyers, contact our team.
This is part of our guide to marketing your small business online.
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