“A Persona is a semi-fictional representation of your ideal customer based on market research and real data about your existing customers.”

Personas in marketing are a powerful tool. They allow you and your team to create empathy for the people you’re looking to start a relationship with, understanding them as humans and not numbers. They help you pinpoint their pains which in turn allow you to create content that adds value to them, while improving your brand. Creating Personas puts the people at the forefront of your business, thinking about them first and foremost.

History of Personas

Personas also known as ‘consumer pen portraits’ were created in the mid-90s with the aim of developing a CRM strategy, this was then adopted and made famous by OgilvyOne, while Apple used Personas when designing its user interface in 1999.

Personas have risen in popularity over the last decade, mainly from a user experience point of view for designing software. However more recently the rise of digital marketing has adopted the use of Personas for product marketing and strategic planning. The social media landscape that now enthrals us all has fragmented our audience across different channels, at different times, with different messages. Personas allow us bring back the focus and fine tune our messaging that resonates with the people we want relationships with.

Who are they and why are they effective?

A Persona is a fictional character that you create and develop based on some of your most importance customers. You want to be able to understand what their wants and needs are from their point of view, and how this will affect their buying decisions. Developing Personas will allow you to identify core segments, understand their goals, and tailor content and products to match.

The Pre-Persona Process

Before mapping out your Personas, look to uncover needs and gain deep insight into your current customers. This will allow you to cross reference with the Personas you create. Look to consider the following categories:

• Demographics — age, marital status, education background, career path

• Job Information — their role, skills for job, day to day activities

• Challenges — biggest challenges and why, how do they solve them

• Influencers — media consumption habits, who do they respect/read

• Interests — how do they spend free time, what’s a treat/chore

Once you have collated the responses from the interviews, you will need to organise the customers into groups based on the data. You can look to segment them into the following:

• Geographical segmentation — group by location

• Demographic segmentation — group by demographic and job information

• Psychographic segmentation — group by challenges and influences

• Behavioral segmentation — group by interests

Persona mapping

Similar to the customer interviews, there will be questions that crossover for your Personas. However to gain an insight and understanding of your Personas it’s crucial that you interview your current customers. After you have completed the mapping checklist, collate all the answers together to create a story.

Final thoughts on Personas and Social Media

Social media isn’t just social media anymore, it’s much more than that. To be successful on the myriad of channels available you need to combine a variety of other marketing disciplines. To be truly effective you need to have your Personas on point, the Influencers leveraged, remarkable Content, and only then are you ready to enter the realm of social media.

Feel free to ask any questions, give recommendations, and share your experiences. For a checklist you can follow when mapping out Personas and examples of Persona stories, contact me on Twitter. Thanks for reading.