Customer persona

First, a quick definition: ‘demography’ – the science of vital and social statistics, as of the births, deaths, diseases, marriages, etc., of populations (source).

The image below is taken from some training provided by the University of York. It shows customer demographics, which can help us understand, to an extent, who we might be marketing our products to.

However, two people can share the same demographics but have completely different tastes and experiences. You’ll need to be able to filter these personalities and define your customer more clearly in order to reach them. One way is to rely on your values and mission, discussed earlier. That may chime with some people in your rough demographic more than others.

A good way to really pinpoint your customer profile is to complete a Persona Canvas. You can find one in the further reading links with instructions. Do as many as you can – you’ll find that whilst you might have one product, you have a handful of persona types who will buy it – and you’ll need to market to each of those individually. For example – look at how the iPhone is marketed to youngsters who want to play games, compared to customers who want to create videos.

Over to you

Download the Persona Canvas and add this to your collection – that’s right, print it large and keep it on your wall!