Quick, what’s more important? The problem you’re trying to solve, or who you’re solving it for? The answer is of course that it depends, but I see too many companies overly fixated on how they’re elegantly solving a problem (though differentiation is paramount) and not spending enough time on who they’re solving it for. So marketers, right now, let’s focus on the WHO.

When we focus on WHO you’re solving a problem for (i.e. your target audience), it’s not enough to name a segment. Gamers! Home chefs! Entrepreneurs! Millennials! Not good enough. You have to be specific, and for that you need to get good at personas. What I love about personas is that they force us to think specifically, and they’re incredibly useful in not only shaping our product or service for good product-market fit, but they also help marketers be laser-focused on where we’ll find our best customers. Understanding the prospective consumer with a persona can help us determine the type of content and deliverables we need in order to grow our business. In other words, personas are a critical tool in your marketing toolkit.

The Basics

A persona is a semi-fictional representation of your actual customer based on market and independent research from overall market trends, and if you’re lucky, existing customer analytics. If you don’t have research on your own customers yet, just go with any secondary desk research that you’ve already gathered. The process to get ready to create your persona could include:

• Looking at existing consumer databases and surveying customers
• Interviewing customers
• Conducting online research based on your specific location and company (hint: Google research!)
• Analyzing synthesized data

You’ll need to collect information that will tell a story about an individual that is apart of your greater audience. Many online resources provide a guidance that can help you collect the right kind of information. Here’s a sample overview of what you might want to include:

• Demographics (age, gender, ethnicity, income, etc.)
• Behaviors (where they shop, what they read, etc.)
• Personal Background (professional background, hobbies, likes, etc.)
• Specific goals
• Needs/wants
• Concerns or Challenges
• Physical and Social environment
• A Picture

Keeping details consistent and specific — and avoiding generic statements — will help your persona come alive as a “real” person.

Step 1: Name your persona.

Don’t over-think this, but don’t under-think it either. Yes, you can just call the persona Tom, or Maria. But if you’re going to do multiple personas to represent different customers with different needs, you might want add a descriptor.

For example, a men’s shoe boutique might have personas called Joe Classic, Adventure Rick, and Diego Pop to represent 3 segments that are looking for their shoes to do different jobs for them.‍

Step 2: What is your product or service, and its major benefits?

The idea here is to keep you somewhat focused on the reason you’re working on a persona in the first place.

Taking the same shoe store example, they might say their store’s mission is to curate the highest quality shoes available for discriminating men and to deliver impeccable service & hospitality from the moment a customer walks through their doors to the end of the shoe’s useful life. They have a 100% lifetime guarantee policy and will repair or replace any shoe they sell if it fails in any way.‍

‍Step 3: Background

Introduce your persona (ex. Joe Classic) as if you were introducing your best customer to the owner of your company. How old is he? Where does he work? What level of education does he have? What’s his income? What type of house does he live in? What car does he drive? What clubs or associations does he belong to? What does he do for fun? What are his goals?

For example:

Joe Classic works in finance at a major studio. He’s 28, and is already a Finance Director, which is pretty impressive for his age. He graduated with honors from Purdue, and was recruited to Ernst & Young straight out of college. He makes $128k per year, and though he lives in a trendy apartment village in Studio City now, he’s saving to buy his first house. He’s been going out with his girlfriend for 4 years now, and will propose to her within the next year. He’ll begrudgingly admit that she has shaped his style sense for the better. He rocks a classic ‘Mad Men’ style look at work, and on the weekend he wears expensive jeans and tees. He mostly shops at Banana Republic and Nordstrom. He likes to hang out with his girlfriend and other couple friends they have. They consider themselves foodies and like to check out new restaurants around town. When he was promoted to Director, he treated himself to a new BMW lease, and he’s obsessive about keeping it spotless.‍

Step 4: Hero Story

What is the central journey your persona is on related to your product or service? How can you construct a story that puts casts them as the hero, and your product or service as the ‘mentor, guide, or gift’?

For example: If we really pay attention to Joe Classic, he’s in the midst of a metamorphoses. He’s going from ‘young & hungry’ to a full fledged responsible adult. He’s got a promotion, and will soon propose marriage. He’s becoming more sure of himself, and that will express itself in his wardrobe as well.‍

Step 5: Problems = Needs

From the customer’s point of view, what are the problems that need to be solved or rectified by your product or service?

For example: Joe loves his new Mad Men look, but he’s not always confident he’s choosing the right shoe styles and socks to go with his work wardrobe. Usually his girlfriend helps him pick his shoes, but he wants to start doing it himself. He hates going to department stores and big shoe stores where there are too many choices, and often ends up frustrated and leaving if he doesn’t see something he likes immediately.

If we look at this situation, we can see that what Joe really needs is fewer choices (ex. a curated selection), confidence that he’s making good choices (ex. in the form of having an expert stylist help) and personalization.‍

Step 6: Work Arounds

What is the customer doing currently to work around the problem they face?

For example: Right now, he browses a lot online for shoes — the abundance of choice is frustrating, but at least he can get his girlfriend’s opinion. He’s also been thinking about joining a club like Trunk Club lately, but doesn’t want to commit.‍

Step 7: Where do they congregate?

Here’s the fun part. Where can you find Joe Classic? Where does he hang out, both online and off? Think of social platforms, forums, websites, newsletters, magazines, venues, etc.

For example:

Joe Classic reads Fast Company and Wired magazines, and subscribes to the Business Insider newsletter for daily business oriented headlines. At work, he reads the Financial Times. He obsessively posts to Instagram and is also really starting to like SnapChat, though he tries to maintain a mostly professional online life. He’s lucky that he gets to attend sporting events through his company and loves to go to basketball games, and follows basketball closely. He has the ESPN app, and gets notifications on teams he follows, especially the Golden State Warriors, and his hometown team The Spurs. He’s also an avid fan of John Oliver and his show Last Week Tonight on HBO. He also loves trendy restaurants, especially gastropub types.‍

Step 8: What’s the bait?

Finally, the good part. How are you going to compel Joe to stop dead in his tracks wherever he happens to be and check you out? What is the offer that is so good, he’s going to act RIGHT NOW. In other words, we need Joe to either get in his car and drive to the store right now, or more likely, take an action online that helps you reel him in. Most of the time, that means giving him something he really really wants, in exchange for his email address or some other way you can close the loop with him.

In the context of the shoe store, the easy answer is that you could offer some sort of discount. And there’s nothing wrong with that, but it’s boring. And more importantly, you may not have to discount your product to get Joe to purchase. You’ve just done all sorts of work to identify the problem Joe really has, which is too many choices and lack of confidence in his choices. Maybe the bait is a beer tasting/shoe styling event at the store, or a video style consult, or maybe the bait is a ‘style engine’ that zeroes in on 3 shoe perfect styles based on answers to 3 questions. The answer could be all 3. When you’re fishing, it’s nice to have more than one lure in your tackle box.

The Bottom Line

With this persona, you are armed with a goldmine of direction. You know who you get up in the morning for. You know their real problem, and how you can solve it. You know where to reach your customer, and you know what you can do to reel them in. Now get going!

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