Your customers share similarities, which is why creating a customer persona is powerful for understanding and targeting your audience. But, what should be in a customer persona to ensure it provides value? Let’s take a closer look at what it is a customer persona, the benefits it offers, and the key elements of a persona to make it easier for you to get started.
Definition
A ‘customer persona’ (also called ‘buyer persona’ and ‘marketing persona’) is a semi-fictional representation that describes your customers’ most common characteristics. It’s more than demographic information — it’s what makes your ideal customer unique like their interests, goals, and challenges. Personas humanize your audience, allowing for more empathic storytelling that speaks directly to them.
5 Reasons to Have Customer Personas
A one-size-fits-all approach to your customers won’t yield the kind of results you want. Nowadays, consumers expect personalized service and a holistic user experience. According to Gladly’s 2020 Customer Expectations Report, 79% of study participants said that a personalized experience is more important than personalized marketing.
In addition to consumer expectations, here are five more reasons why you should create and use customer personas.
1. Deeper Understanding
Your business will have a deeper understanding of your customers and how your product or service helps them. When you know their motivations and frustrations, you’ll be able to improve your product/service to better meet their needs.
2. Laser-Focus Targeting
When you target everybody, you end up targeting no one. Having customer personas allows you to create content that stands out from the clutter, reaching your audience instead of getting lost in the crowd.
3. More Engagement
Not only does crafting content for your persona get more attention, but it’ll also increase engagement because you’re speaking their language. Additionally, you’re less likely to waste time and resources creating content that doesn’t resonate with your audience because you know what formats and topics they like.
4. Consistent Messaging
From your website and social media to phone calls and in-person interactions, your messaging should be consistent across the board. With personas, it’s easier for your team to provide seamless, personalized experiences to customers.
5. Stronger Team
Incorporate personas into your employee training to build stronger teams and enhance your customers’ end-to-end experience with your business. When employees truly understand your target audience, interactions will improve and customers will be happier.
Key Elements of a Customer Persona
Customer personas look different from one business to the next, but there are certain things that you’ll find in most. Here are four key elements of a customer persona. (Your persona may need more details, however, these are good starting points.) Analytics, surveys, and interviews are great ways to gather this information.
Demographics
Start broad and then narrow down the persona’s age, gender, location, and income. The last one might be harder to get since it’s not available in analytics and customers might not feel comfortable sharing, but you can do an average salary based on their job title.
Personal Background
Include personal details such as their profession, education, hobbies, interests, and family situation (e.g. married, kids). Paint a picture of what their personality and demeanor are like in real life.
Goals
What goals does your persona have? What do they care about? Find out what motivates your customers so you can align your product or service toward their goals.
Challenges
What obstacles get in the way of your persona from achieving their goals? What frustrates them? When you understand their pain points, you’ll be able to build empathy with them and improve your product or service.
How You Help
Your product or service offers a solution — what is it? How exactly does your business help your persona achieve their goals and overcome challenges? Focus more on the benefits of your offering rather than its features.
Attract and Keep More Customers with Personas
No matter what you sell, creating customer personas can do wonders for customer acquisition and retention rates. Additionally, they’ll make your business stronger by providing customers a holistic user experience. Disrupt your industry by taking the effort to understand your customers so you’re able to provide personalized experiences they’ll appreciate and remember.
Although there are many customer persona templates available online, they might not be enough to provide the most value to your business. That’s where working with a marketing agency is great for delving deeper into your brand, products/services, and audiences to create a thorough customer persona.
Reach out to Mavericks Marketing today to explore how personas can take your business to the next level!
