Customer personas are NOT the same as your target audience; but rather, far more detailed and laser-targeted – giving it far more power and results.
More than just a name, customer personas give individuals a family background, career, income, daily habits, attitudes, goals, fears and a set of situations that relate to your brand.
Given that 71% of companies who surpass their revenue and lead goals have reported using customer personas – it seems that there is no longer an excuse to skip this crucial step as part of your marketing plan.
The importance of customer personas
Despite being just a fictional representation of your ideal customer, personas help cultivate a better understanding of what your customers expect or want from your business.
Your goal then, is to simply focus on satisfying this ideal customer, creating exceptional content, products and services that is both highly-personalized and meaningful to them.
How do you create a good customer persona?
A good customer persona is many things, but first and foremost – it should align with what your business is all about. What are your business’ goals and objectives? Knowing this can help to build your persona in such a way that it benefits all stakeholders.
Get your answers from a variety of sources – surveys, polls, interviews, as well as insights gathered from your website, social media accounts, and internal team. The more expansive and detailed your research is, the better. This means giving your persona a face, name, age, geographic location, occupation, hobbies and interests etc.
Ideally, you will want to include their current interactions with your brand and their purchasing behaviors. Having an idea of how they consume content on social media is also helpful in tweaking your marketing messages to boost engagement and conversion rates.
Creating a customer persona is just the start
Creating a customer person is literally putting yourself in the shoes of your customers and treating them like real, human beings.
Once you have created one, make sure that you use it as a basis to inform all your major decisions – from the development of specific products and services, providing clarity to all your marketing writing, as well as guide your sales strategy.
The same applies when working on a mobile app – customer personas are a good first step to take which can help determine if investing in more interactive platforms such as augmented reality app development is ideal.
Today, consumers are far more discerning and have much higher expectations from the brands they engage with. If you don’t “get them” – then prepare to fall behind and be forgotten.
If you are tired of relying on guesswork – get our Creative Digital Agency to help you go the extra mile and create the perfect customer persona for you, as well as the exceptional content to go along!
