Creating a customer persona

Knowing and understanding your customers is central to a successful business strategy. Customer personas are your perfect tool.

So if you haven’t already developed your knowledge bank through research, and created your customer persona or personas, then now’s the time to do so.

What’s a customer persona? It’s a fictional character that represents your ideal customer.

Including information on key personal characteristics, this will make it easy for yuo and your staff to understand and visualise who your audience is.

A customer persona helps you to see your customers as real people. It will help you to relate to them as a person, enhancing your relationship.

It will also help to inform the segmenting of your audience, how you target them and how you position your brand, product or service against your competitors.

Reach the people you need to reach on the right channels, with the right message, at the right time – personalise your marketing approach to enhance connections

Easily gain qualified leads and customers.

Your customer persona will need refreshing each year to ensure it’s accurate, and may even need updates inbetween.

But spending this time is an essential investment.

How to use a customer persona in customer journey mapping

We know that customers think, do and feel different things at different stages of their purchase journey.

Personas should be adjusted to suit these different stages, so you can tailor your communications accordingly.

You’ll see what I mean in my postgraduate student examples below.

What kind of information should be included in a customer persona?

Demographics: age, where they live, gender, race
Socioeconomic status: how much money do they have?
Work: what work do they do?
Psychographics: values, desires, goals, interests, and lifestyle choices
Pain points: how is your product or service helping?
Barriers: what barriers are in the way of them purchasing?
Motivations: what will motivate them to purchase?
Channels: what channels do they use?
Competitors: what other brands do they use for similar things and why? How are you different?
Brands: what brands do they love and why?

Where do I get customer persona information from?

Sector and business surveys
Customer focus groups and interviews
Customer data sources across channels

Postgraduate student customer persona examples

	Progressor from undergraduate study	Returner from a career or other commitments
Demographics: age, where they live, gender, race	21-24 Live within 100 miles of the university Male and female	25 upwards Live within 50 miles of the university Male and female
Socioeconomic status	Low	Medium-high
Work	No career	Has been or is in a career
Educational status	2:1 undergraduate degree	2:1 undergraduate degree
Psychographics	Enjoyed university, wants to specialise in their undergraduate subject to enhance their career prospects	Wants to progress or change their career; lacks confidence without specific qualifications; will be nervous about returning to university after time away
Pain points	Struggling to move into a desirable career; lacks money	Struggling to move into a desirable career
Motivations	Wants to move into a desirable career that pays well; wants to experience more student life; may need financial support to continue studies	Wants to move into a desirable career that pays well; may need financial support to continue studies; may need study support also; will need support during decision-making also as will lack understanding of system
Channels	Live chat Social media Google Search Education events Website	Live chat Social media Google Search Website Education events
Competitors	Other universities and employers	Other universities and employers

To discover more, check out Smart Insights. They provide evidence-based information and models to help businesses and professionals to thrive.

And if you want help to develop your customer persona, simply contact me today.