What is a Customer Persona & How to Build a Persona?

Customers represent a critical aspect in order for a business to have success. It is less important if the enterprise or the business is a little bit old or just launched, because every business must first provide a positive buying experience for customers. This represents the only good way to make sure that the business will grow and have awareness in the market. 

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According to different studies, brands and enterprises that are more focused on ensuring a good customer experience when shopping and interacting with the brand are expected to have six times more revenue than their market competitors. 

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So every enterprise and business needs to think from the buyer’s perspective in order to offer the best product and service and stand out in the market among other competitors. 

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Customer persona definition, also known as buyer persona, represents the ideal customer that a business or enterprise creates from the audience and market research.  Usually, the customer persona profile is based on the people who have already purchased from the business. 

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The customer persona definition is often used interchangeably with “prospect persona”, “buyer persona”, or “ marketing personas”, but all refer to the ideal customer that has specific characteristics, attitudes, motivations, and also concerns about products and services on the market.

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Customer persona definition includes details and information about the business target customer, such as behavior, interests, demographics, and others, to help the brand meet their specific needs. 

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It’s important to mention that while the target audience represents a wider group of people based on shared characteristics such as age, gender, or location, the customer persona is a representation of more specific human aspects and is able to create a picture of an individual in that group. 

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One of the user persona examples can be if the target audience is represented by women between the ages of 25 and 40. Then, the customer persona will be a woman named Sarah who is a marketing manager and values efficiency and shops online for convenience.

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Customer or buyer personas are crucial for any business because by aligning the strategies with the needs of personas, the brands can create more targeted marketing campaigns and also set up better user experiences.

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As stated previously, the customer persona definition is represented by the ideal customer, which is based on the people who have already purchased the product or the service. On the other hand, the user persona term has a higher emphasis on the end-users of the product or service. 

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So, while one is looking to improve the overall understanding of how buyers usually behave, the other is focused on those who will use the product or service. 

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One of the user persona examples can be in the B2B industry, where a sales manager will probably be the customer who will purchase new software, but the employees will be the end-users of the product. In this case, the sales manager is usually concerned about various factors, such as the price, but the company’s employees will have concerns about the product's usability or the overall efficiency of the software. 

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When creating a customer or a buyer persona, every business must break down some elements and put together a representative customer for their brand. Let’s review some of the key components: 

1. Demographics

Usual information and details such as age, gender, education, location, income level, or job title are the basic elements that help the business identify better who the customer is. These details, even though they seem simple, are able to provide context in order for businesses to understand the personas’ backgrounds and lifestyles. 

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2. Goals and objectives 

It’s important to understand what the customer wants to achieve in order to create the best customer persona. The goals usually range from personal inspiration to career achievements. 

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A user persona example here could be a fitness app, where the goal is to stay healthy and maintain a balanced lifestyle. These kinds of objectives help brands and businesses align their messages with the solutions for customers' needs and wishes. 

3. Challenges and Pain Points

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Don’t forget when creating a buyer persona to identify the challenges that they might face. By keeping this in mind, businesses will be able to address their specific needs by launching products and services accordingly. Pain points can vary from time limitations or limited resources. 

4. Behavior patterns 

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This element usually includes different details about how that persona interacts with products, services, or content. In this persona example, it’s crucial to know if the customers will check the social media platforms before making the purchase decision because that brand can change its social media strategies accordingly.

5. Preferences and Motivations 

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Businesses must understand what motivates a customer’s choices. Usually, those motivations are based on the brand's reputation, affordability, or the convenience of the product or service. This way, companies can create more convincing messages that resonate with the customer’s values. 

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It’s worth mentioning that everyone can find a customer or a user persona template almost everywhere online, and can easily be changed or adapted to suit specific business needs and preferences. Because there is no universal “perfect” user persona template, the key elements mentioned are essential for any buyer persona. However, additional elements can be included according to the business industry to make the persona even more fitted.

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To build an effective customer persona, it’s important to have a structured and detailed approach in order to have a realistic customer or buyer persona profile. Here’s a step-by-step guide to achieving the complex buyer persona profile: 

1. Research 

Usually, businesses must start by collecting data and information from existing and potential customers. The most effective research methods are based on surveys, interviews, and also on focus groups. While surveys offer quantitative data, the interview is able to provide insights into the customers’ preferences, motivations, and behaviors. 

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2. Determine the patterns 

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After the data and information are collected, it’s important to analyze and determine the patterns for the common characteristics of the customers. Look for consistent patterns such as similar goals, shared demographics, locations, or similar issues and challenges. After that, try to group those into segments to represent different types of customer personas. 

3. Create an actual customer persona profile

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This is probably the most important step and involves the summarization of all details and information gathered. Try to put a name and background details to make the profile more realistic. After that, describe the key aspects like the demographic aspects, goals and objectives, major issues, and challenges of behavior patterns. It’s important to make a summary that includes the personality and the priorities of the buyer persona. 

4. Validate and update 

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Due to the fact that buyer personas are changing constantly, the data and information must be updated over time according to their periodic preferences. Businesses must test their buyer persona profile to see how good is able to represent the customers. Also, brands have the opportunity to use A/B testing along with customer feedback to validate the accuracy of the information.

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By creating detailed buyer personas, businesses can have a powerful tool that allows them to have a better connection with the target audience. It’s essential to follow a structured process of researching, identifying patterns, and validating personas in order to gain important insights into the buyer’s needs, motivations, and challenges. 

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So, every brand, enterprise, or business must start creating its buyer personas in order to ensure meaningful and targeted experiences that can resonate with the customer and ensure a long-term purchase relationship.

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