How to write user personas

Branding

You can’t sell to everyone. 

No one has the resources or capacity to provide a full-package service that is flexible enough to be the perfect solution for everyone on the planet!

But, your product or service is the perfect solution for a group of people. 

This is what is known as your “target audience”; the selection of leads individuals who would really benefit from the product or service that you offer and the way that you offer it. 

However, discovering and defining that target audience can be a tricky thing to do. 

This is where user personas come into play.

What are user personas?

User personas are fictional representations of your target audience that help you understand their needs, behaviours, and motivations. They are an essential tool for marketing (and other aspects of your business), as they provide a roadmap for creating relevant and effective content, features, and experiences. 

In this blog post, we’ll review the steps for creating effective user personas for your business.

Define your target audience

The best place to start is by gathering information on your existing client base. If they are already buying from you, then presumably they are liking what they see. Look for patterns. Here’s a selection of questions that might prompt you if you provide a B2B service:

• What size company do you normally attract?
• From what industry?
• What is the ethos of these companies?
• What are the age, gender and job title of the person who normally contacts you from these countries?
• What do they like about your company?
• What were some of the objections that they had when they first contacted you?
• What were some of the common questions they asked?
• What are some of the things they worry about when looking for a solution like yours?

Don’t just use your own insights, ask the other employees at your company. You might want to do this with a survey or hold a focus group where you collaborate with a selection of people from all departments within your company. 

It is essential that you include the people who talk to your clients – namely your Sales Team. They will have the best insights into what questions the Clients are asking.

Conduct research

Next, conduct user research to gather qualitative information about your target audience, such as their goals, motivations, challenges, and pain points. This can be done through interviews, surveys, and other forms of qualitative research. 

This can be time-consuming and costly. Normally people don’t give up their time or information for free, so an incentive is required.

Look for patterns

Now, analyse all of the information you have gathered. Look for emerging patterns. Collect the information under the following headings:

1. Background 

Information about the person’s age, education, income, occupation, and other demographic information.

2. Goals

The person’s short- and long-term goals, and how they relate to your product or service. Some examples might be:

3. Pain points

The challenges and obstacles the person faces when trying to achieve their goals.

4. Motivations

What drives the person to take action and engage with your product or service?

5. Behaviours

How the person typically interacts with your product or service, including their habits and routines.

6. Quotes

A quote or two that captures the essence of the persona and helps bring it to life.

Create multiple personas

Using the information, create several user personas that represent different segments of your target audience. 

Make sure each persona is unique, with its own distinct background, goals, pain points, and motivations. Sometimes it can be helpful to give them a title or name. 

Validate your personas

Finally, validate your personas by checking them against your existing customer data and user research. If necessary, make revisions and updates to ensure that your personas accurately reflect the needs, behaviours, and motivations of your target audience.

How to use your user personas

By understanding the people you are trying to reach, you can create more effective services, marketing campaigns, and customer service experiences.

Here are just a few of the ways that you can use user personas:

1. Build a brand identity

Use the user personas to refine and describe your brand identity. For example, if your target audience is fed up with dishonesty within your industry, then position yourself as a company of integrity and honesty. If your target audience is pressed for time, explain how your product or service saves them time. 

Want to build a brand identity? Look here. 

2. Ensure your website provides the best user experience

User personas can also be used to change your website and make it more user-friendly. The better a user’s experience on your site, the greater the chance they will make an enquiry through that website. Some examples might be: building an online booking system if your user personas suggest your target audience wants convenience or providing a free demo if your user needs reassurance that the app they’re buying works. 

3. Improve customer experience

If your user personas suggest that your target audience like to be given the gold-star treatment, build that into the way you train your Sales staff in order to improve their customer experience in your store. Maybe the user personas suggest that clients are more elderly, and therefore would appreciate a human helpline, rather than a chatbot added to your website. Or send a simple “thank you” email to a time-strapped client’s inbox to know that their enquiry has been received. Whatever the user personas throw up, make sure you ensure that their experience with your company at each point is meeting their needs, removing their objections and allowing them to get the best experience possible. 

User Personas: hard work, but worth it

Creating user personas can be a time-consuming process, but the benefits are well worth the effort. Done well, user personas can feed into every aspect of your company, from marketing to website messaging, to customer experience. They can help you build your client base and grow your business.