How to create it
Creating a customer persona is not only about defining your potential purchasing audience, but also about generating insights that you have gathered from your market and competitor research.
To build your personas, a basic rule of thumb is to interview 5-30 people.
- Having interviewed at least 5 people, you will begin to detect trends. At some point, your interviews will stop generating new insights. That is the sign that your research is complete – for the time being. If you cannot interview customers, you can interview friends/stakeholders/acquaintances who have experienced your product.
- If a customer has purchased your product, perhaps you could reach out to request an interview.
Result
With these tactics, you should begin to see patterns emerge as your customer personas take shape. You will develop a deeper understanding of your overarching goals, customer goals, tasks, needs, and pain points.
Process
Customer personas should not be defined once, as they will continuously evolve just as your business evolves. This means that value lies in the updates; keeping them in an ‘as-is’ state rather than a ‘use-to-be’ state. Defining customer personas is not the end-goal, but a beginning step.
Defining your customer personas will hone your brand identity, shape your content marketing and messaging, and contribute to new ideas about how to grow your business in the form of a marketing strategy. It will also enhance your user experience.
