Create a persona in the image of your customers

• Planning 17 mars 2020 5 min.

Do you have a clear idea of your company’s target audience? With well-crafted personas, you’ll be able to grasp the needs of your typical customers with even greater precision and hit the bulls-eye with every communication!

Persona 101: Where to start, and why?

In the world of marketing and customer-centric strategies, it’s vital to understand your target audience. Creating personas is a powerful tool that can help you gain valuable customer insights. Personas are fictional representations of your ideal customers based on research and data. They allow you to understand better your audience’s needs, expectations, motivations, preferences and challenges. By developing accurate, detailed personas, you can tailor your marketing efforts, products and services to engage and resonate with your target customers. In this article, we’ll explore the basics of personas and guide you through the creation of these invaluable tools for your business.

The importance of a persona file

Personas are one of the foundations of your content strategy and your marketing strategy in general. In a way, they’re like sketches of your ideal customers. Imaginary characters that reflect your targets’ personalities, needs and issues in such a comprehensive way that they come alive.

As you can see, a practical persona sheet doesn’t have to be generic. If you have to be vague to include characteristics that apply to all your customers, it’s likely because you shouldn’t have just one persona but several.

This precision will enable you to tailor your marketing efforts to their needs and address them naturally with arguments and images that resonate with them.

Are you convinced of their usefulness? Let’s move on to the various stages of their design.

Creating detailed persona profiles: several simple but essential steps

Creating detailed persona profiles is not only a simple process; it’s crucial for any company wishing to understand its target audience in greater depth. In this list, we’ll explore the steps for gathering the necessary information, bringing these personas to life and keeping them in mind throughout your marketing efforts. By following these simple but essential steps, you’ll have the invaluable information you need to make a meaningful connection with your audience. Let’s dive in and discover the secrets of building detailed persona profiles that lead to successful marketing strategies.

The collection phase: it’s not just online!

The collection phase is a crucial step in creating accurate, detailed personas. During this phase, you gather the information you need to understand your target audience. To guarantee the authenticity of your personas, it’s essential to conduct interviews or surveys with real professionals who closely match your target profiles. These may be your current customers or people outside your existing customer base who fit your target audience.

Your questions enable you to understand your potential customers’ main motivations, world, and any reluctance they may have towards your services. It would help if you also took an interest in the communication channels they use so that you can focus your efforts in the right places.

The more detailed your personas, the easier it will be to design marketing tools perfectly adapted to the reality of your targets.

Remember, the more detailed and comprehensive your personas, the better equipped you’ll be to design marketing tools and strategies that align perfectly with the reality of your target audience. So, invest the time and effort necessary in this collection phase to gather the most accurate and valuable data to create impactful personas.

Bring your personas to life.

Have you collected all the raw materials? Now, you can create your detailed data sheets.

Here’s what you might find in your ideal customer profile:

• First name, age: Include the persona’s first name and age to humanize its profile and make it more understandable.
• Industry: Identify the industry or sector in which the persona operates. This information helps you understand the challenges and specific needs of the persona.
• Position, supervisor: Determine the persona’s job title and status in the organization’s hierarchy. This will help you understand their job, level of influence and decision-making power.
• Role and responsibilities within the company: Describe the person’s role and responsibilities. This information provides an overview of their main objectives, tasks and priorities.
• Obstacles and issues related to your offering: Identify the obstacles or challenges the persona may face with your products or services. Understanding their pain points enables you to tailor your message and offering to their needs.
• Educational background: Explore the persona’s educational experience. This helps you understand their level of expertise, knowledge and qualifications in their field.
• Interests: Determine the persona’s interests, hobbies and preferences outside work. This information can prove invaluable in crafting personalized marketing messages and creating content that resonates with them.
• Character traits: Define the persona’s personality traits, such as communication style, approach to decision-making and attitude to change. Understanding their behavioural characteristics enables you to tailor your messages and interactions to their preferences.

Creating relevant, detailed persona profiles is essential in understanding and effectively engaging your target audience. You can build a complete picture of your ideal customers by following the checklist and gathering information such as the persona’s name, age, industry, function, responsibilities, challenges, education, interests and personality traits. These personas are invaluable tools for your marketing strategies, content creation and customer interactions. Remember to keep your personas in mind, as they will guide your decision-making process and help you tailor your messages and offers to their specific needs. With well-defined personas, you can connect with your audience on a deeper level and provide personalized experiences that resonate with them.

Keep your personas in mind; they’re your examples!

By investing time and effort in developing accurate personas, you can tailor your marketing efforts, products and services to your target groups’ specific needs and preferences.

If you’d like help creating true-to-life personas, our team of experts is ready to help you bring them to life. Harness the power of personas and unleash the full potential of your marketing strategies.