How can you create a customer persona that drives sales?

Set a Wildly Audacious Goal Start by setting a wildly audacious goal. Why are you making these personas? To boost sales, foster loyalty, or revolutionize your marketing strategies? Nail down your purpose because that's going to be your North Star guiding you through this journey.

Defining your goals is definitely important as customer personas as while customer personas do get created for sales/marketing, they also get created for customer experience and you can't use one for the other. You need different customer personas for each purpose.

An innovative marketing approach or strategies can be executed in order to aligned with the productivity rate. Investing into technologically advance system software will surely help achieve the company's growth.

Aim to be influential in customer needs. Develop goals that meet the needs of the stakeholders. Focus every decision on the customer and keep their best interests at the core of each goal.

I typically follow these steps: Gather Data: I collect and analyze data from various sources such as customer interviews, surveys, analytics, and market research to understand customer behaviors, preferences, and pain points. Identify Patterns: I look for commonalities among customers and segment them based on demographics, behaviors, motivations, and goals. Add Emotional Insights: I integrate emotional and psychological aspects into personas, understanding what motivates and drives their decisions, not just their practical needs. Validate with Stakeholders: I validate these personas by sharing and discussing them with relevant stakeholders, including sales teams, marketers, and customer service representatives.

Gather Wisdom, Not Just Data Data collection is key, but let's call it what it really is: gathering wisdom. We want to understand the hearts and minds of our customers. We're not just filling in a spreadsheet here; we're creating a vibrant, living portrait of the people we serve. Dive into surveys, interviews, and existing data. Understand their needs, desires, frustrations, joys - the whole human experience.

Design a framework of service and caring practices that is grounded from the data. Use the data to identify your key customers and their preferences. Build a persona that is validated by the data. Ensure your decisions are data-driven and customer/focused.

Segment Wisely Once you've got your wisdom, start finding the common threads. This is where segmentation comes in. We're looking for the shared narratives that connect people – whether it's demographics, behaviours, or interests. These shared stories are the starting point for your customer personas.

Organize collected data into categories that represent the different types of persons seeking your services. Take the time to understand each individual person’s needs and interests.

Segment Wisely Once you've got your wisdom, start finding the common threads. This is where segmentation comes in. We're looking for the shared narratives that connect people – whether it's demographics, behaviours, or interests. These shared stories are the starting point for your customer personas.

Use the knowledge developed through data collection to build a persona that reflects the uniqueness of your customers. Your company persona must be that of your customers!

Put Your Persona to the Test Validation is where the rubber meets the road. We've got to ensure these personas are more than just creative exercises. They need to accurately represent our customer base. Test them, compare them, get feedback. If a persona doesn't resonate, it's back to the drawing board. We're aiming for authenticity and utility.

The persona is validated by the customer base. They must identify with the company and see themselves as collaborative partners. They want to be heard and understood. Allow them to have a voice to validate the initiatives.

Keep Your Persona Fresh and Alive Remember, our personas are living, evolving entities. As the world changes, so do our customers. Keep your personas up-to-date, reflecting changes in behavior, needs, or market trends. Stagnation is the enemy of innovation!

No one formula can truly calculate how to genuinely and empathetically care for your customer. The truth is, what people really want is to connect…with you, your product or service, and to ultimately have trust in your brand. My advice, seek to understand your customer, then design your product pitch in a way that respects them; and success will find you. That is if your product has and maintains value. Moral of the story is to be…well…moral; to be trustworthy; and to be respectful. Wouldn’t you buy from someone who gave you all of those things?

Each individual is different, and needs to be treated so. I believe the best way is to understand the customers need and to provide the solution to meet that need by explaining the benefits and providing the disadvantages of not having the product. Full transparency obtains trust and loyalty from the customer to keep coming back to you.

If you don’t know the different types of customers you serve, you won’t be able to strategically market your product/service to new potential customers. Also, knowing your customer personas will allow you to cater your support strategies that you use when customers reach out. Ex. If you know your customer is not tech savy, you want to make sure you provide simple steps and use non technical language. Visuals always help