Why creating a persona for your business is important
Persona is a semi-fictional character, created based on characteristics and data from real customers, which is intended to represent a consumer who would be ideal for a business or company. Thus, these data and characteristics cover the behavior, history, challenges, demographic data and objectives of this ideal client.
For marketers, asking about a company's target audience is part of their routine. But there is a reason, after all, the importance of knowing who you are selling to is enormous. If you know your consumer, it becomes easier create relevant content for him.
Therefore, this is where the persona creation feature comes in. Well, it is from this that we can think about producing material for social networks, websites or blogs. Defining this customer with the main characteristics of whoever buys is fundamental.
Therefore, creating a persona will be of great help when planning marketing strategies in a company. And so, it will be even better if this representation is accurate.
Okay, but what is a persona? Let's explain!
What is persona?
Persona is nothing more than a semi-fictional representation of what an ideal customer would be for your business. In other words, marketers create a character based on real customer data, including characteristics and behaviors. Furthermore, they also structure an entire personal story, with challenges, objectives and motivations.
So, for create a persona, you need to be in touch with your audience, analyzing them. In this way, this makes it possible to identify characteristics in common between several people.
However, this persona does not need to be classified only by numerical data, such as gender, age and region. It must have as its essence the habits and preferences of your customers. And remember: if you have a customer base, it can help a lot at this stage.
This is not the time to focus only on satisfied customers. By studying dissatisfied customers, you can understand new points of view about your company. Use this information to your advantage.
Now, let’s explain the importance of having a persona.
Why create a persona?
We create personas so we can better segment the audience, and with that, create specific messages and campaigns for each one. This way, the right speech will reach the right person, increasing the chances of attracting them, or even converting them.
As they say, when you try to talk to everyone, you end up talking to no one, and here it's no different. When you define a persona for your business, it becomes possible to talk better to your audience.
Therefore, there are a few reasons why persona creation resources exist, and some of them are:
- Understand more about your audience: this way, you can study your customer, discover their doubts and gather more information;
- Define what content you need to produce to reach your audience;
- Learn about how potential customers search for information and also how they consume it;
- Plan a more precise strategy, since now you know who you are talking to;
- Understand the tone of voice of your campaign;
- Discover which channels are most efficient for communicating with the public;
- Improve the user experience on digital platforms, such as websites, for example.
But don't forget, persona and target audience are different things!
What is the difference between persona and target audience?
In short, the target audience can be defined as being a part of society, where your efforts to sell a product or service are focused. It is more comprehensive and general, with common characteristics, but not going into many details.
Now, the persona, as we say, is a more specific, detailed and personalized representation of the ideal customer for your business. Here, a more complex profile is outlined, thus defining an identity.
We will give you examples of each one:
- Audience: Men and women, aged 38 to 50, married, with a degree in administration, average monthly income of R$2.900,00. They are seeking to stabilize business within the company where they work.
- Human: Edison Neto is 42 years old, has a degree in administration and works in a medium-sized company. He is looking to understand his competitors' businesses and study how he can optimize his work processes. He is married and has one son.
However, remember that you don't need to choose between one strategy or another, using both in your planning can bring more results. One strategy does not replace the other!
Persona types
Before creating your persona, it is very important to know how to define the audience that will be reached with your brand's content. Therefore, it is extremely important to take into account the type of model of your business, which can be either B2B (Business to Business) or B2C (Business to Consumer).
There are several differences when dealing with each of these audiences. Because, in addition to language and approach, the construction of the persona is also shaped by the sector's internal processes.
How to create a persona for your company?
The persona creation process must be done calmly, analyzing research results, studying your audience and detailing the profile according to the information.
You can follow these steps to structure your persona:
- Collect customer data and information: here, we start by planning the research, before applying it. At this point, we need to study customers, defining objectives and the instruments used. Don't forget: the focus here is to understand your customers' profile and behaviors. We can count on some free tools to carry out these searches, such as: Google Forms, TypeForm or the Survey Monkey.
- Ask and question customers: Have previously defined which questions will be used in the process. But, keep in mind that these questions need to be specific to your segment. You can use some basics in your script, and then go deeper. For example:
- How old are you? Gender? Where do you live?
- Where do you work? Company size? What is your role?
- What are your responsibilities? Goals? What is your routine like?
- How do you stay informed? What social networks do you use? How do you learn new skills?
- What brands do you buy? Where to buy? Why buy?
- Why did you look for this company? How did she help you? What is her greatest quality?
- Analyze the collected data: After applying the survey, review the reports and results. Well, it will be necessary to tabulate and analyze everything. Identify patterns, as they show common characteristics among those surveyed. As you analyze, use these patterns to mark profile traits. Now it’s time to organize your answers.
- Assemble the persona: The time has come to structure your persona. Think of her as a real human being, who will have interactions with your company. Define her characteristics, behaviors, habits and information about her.
- Present the persona to your team: during the process, involving your team can help promote the use of the persona, after all, everyone needs to know it well. The focus is to make your team always remember it during the processes.
Understand the difference between buyer and brand persona
Now that you have more information about what a persona is and how to create one for your business, it’s time to understand the difference between these two terms.
Buyer
These terms are often used when defining the fictional representation of the ideal customer. Therefore, it is created to help the marketing sector better understand who its consumer is, what they need and what they want.
Brand
This model is also created in the structure of a semi-fictional character. However, here the challenge is different.
Therefore, this character will be the “face” and “voice of the brand”, at this moment it is where the construction of the brand's language is created, establishing its way of expressing itself based on its persona.
With these two definitions, we can see that both are important for building a good marketing strategy. While the buyer persona ensures that your brand deeply understands the needs of the public, the brand persona will allow you to create unique communication with customers, setting your business apart from competitors.
Personas and purchasing journey
Once your team is connected with your persona, they are ready to be put to the test by helping to optimize communication. Now, you can start planning strategies related to the customer's purchasing journey.
Use the persona's profile to create content that is relevant and attracts the attention of potential consumers. If you want to improve even further, your company can pursue marketing automation.
Now that you know what personas are, how they work and how to create them, you can start applying them in your strategy planning. Remembering that they have a function as an instrument, therefore, use them in order to obtain the best possible result.
Did you like our article? In our blog We have several other materials like this, if you are interested in applying marketing strategies to optimize your company's performance!