What is a Persona
A persona is a fictional character whose purpose is to represent a user type or target audience — for example, a target audience for a website, a brand or a company. The persona aims to describe your ideal customer in full detail, down to every individual segmentation criterion. When developing a persona, you need to systematically condense knowledge about the target audience from various research sources; what needs, pains and gains does the target audience have?
These typically include the following:
- Demographics: Gender, age, income, education, religion, etc.
- Geography: City, country, region, etc.
- Psychographic: Social status, preferences, loyalty, etc.
- Formulate hypotheses about the persona: Needs, challenges, motivation to purchase a given product.
The fictional persona is used, among other things, in connection with marketing and sales work to better describe, understand and utilise your target audience, and to plan activities and initiatives accordingly.
TIP!
Read more about segmentation here.
That said, working with personas is not a must — but if it improves your understanding, it will likewise improve your efforts and thus your effectiveness.
Persona: An example
The more precisely you can define your persona, the better. It is about selecting and describing the persona based on the criteria that are relevant to your business and customers.
An example of a persona could be:
Louise, 24, student living in Aarhus. Single and enjoys spending time with friends and going for runs.
How do you create a Persona? 4 simple steps
Describing and defining your target audience should be based on in-depth analysis and, of course, your own knowledge of the company, product or service you wish to create a persona for. Once the analysis is complete, it is about selecting the right, relevant criteria for describing your persona.
Below you will find how to create a persona in 4 simple steps:
- Analyse data about your visitors and existing customers.
- Interview your customers and relevant people in the organisation to gain knowledge about your ideal customer.
- Select relevant segmentation criteria in relation to your company/product and your customers.
- Design and define your persona. Answer: Who is my ideal customer? Based on the above.
Once you have designed your persona, you are ready to use it in your strategy and in everything from marketing and sales to product development!
Would you like sparring or advice regarding your target audience and persona, and how to best succeed in marketing to them? Simply fill in the form below and we will give you a call!
