Customer personas

A customer persona is a fictional character made up of the key traits that have been defined within a customer segmentation. A persona helps you to humanise your data and think more personally about your audience. For example, we might know that a company’s target market for selling a car is women aged 25-35. A persona helps us imagine what makes her tick, what is she interested in, and how she views the world.

By developing this deep understanding of your consumer, you can use this data to inform:

• Content creation
• Product development
• Channel selection
• Customer journey planning

A persona turns data and numbers into something tangible that everyone can quickly understand. Here are a few of the key advantages of using personas:

1. A constant reminder to stay customer-centric: By keeping your personas prominent you will be able to remind yourself of the key characteristics of your audience segment every time you work on the project.
2. Keeps everyone on the same page: If everyone is familiar with the personas it’ll help align your content to each audience segment.
3. Easy to explain to others: Having a selection of relatable personas makes it easy to introduce your customer segments to new people, whether it’s employees from other departments or outside agencies.
4. Reduce the risks of misinterpretation: If you share the raw data, some people may focus on different traits producing a different output. Using personas helps reduce this risk.

Join the Discussion

What is your understanding of an organisation’s target market? Can you describe the typical customer of a well-known brand like Nike? Or do they have several target markets? Write your ideas below.