How To Master The Skills Of Finding Perfect User Persona

In this article, we will discuss a significant topic which you can say is the first step in the content creation process.

We need to create content based on the requirement of our target audience needs. Hence understanding your audience is the very first step as accordingly, you will have to make the content. For that purpose, every organization creates a User Persona.

Now let us discuss, what is user persona?

Meaning OF User Persona

User Personas are pictorial and fictional representations of your target audience or your ideal customers.

They are also called as Buyer Personas or Customer Avatars.

Different organizations use different names from the above 2 to create a fictional representation of their target audience.

I hope you have got an idea as to what User Persona means.

Need For Creating user Persona

Well, there could be various reasons depending upon business to business, but some of the common causes are as follows:-

1)Customer persona helps in better understanding of the needs, concerns, and requirements of your existing and prospective customers. It is based on their demographics, job title, goals, barriers which they are facing, etc. 

2)Creating a buyer persona leads to focusing on specific pain points which our target customer is facing. When an organization have created a full-fledged buyer persona template of their target customer, it automatically helps in communicating with your target audience in a much better way and accordingly, good quality content is produced as per their requirements.

3)Creating a buyer persona leads to focusing on specific pain points which our target customer is facing, thus leading to providing valuable information, which offers solutions to their pain points and concerns and helps them move from a situation of frustration to delight.

4)Last but not the least;

1)It helps in creating content which is conversational.

2) Feels like you are talking face to face to face with your target customer while your template is ready.

3)It helps in providing the best possible solution to your target customer.

Hence they become a loyal reader and long term customer.

Keep in mind different templates will have various elements which can be included in a customer persona.

Key elements to be included in User Persona

Let us see what all essential elements needs to be included while preparing a user persona.

Note: Different companies make use of different factors, and hence the usage of elements may depend from business to business and from individual to individual.

The commonly used elements in the customer persona are :

Name

You need to ensure that you are giving a name to your user persona. One needs to understand that every consumer persona has a name, and hence you also need to provide a name for your persona who resembles your target audience.

Picture

Once you have visualized about your target buyer persona, you need to give him a picture which helps a business. It should feel that they are talking to a real person. It thus helps in doing more in-depth research about your target audience. This results in the generation of more ideas on how to prepare more relevant and quality content as per your user persona needs and requirement.

Background

You also need to understand the context of your user persona. For example:- if your target audience is adults between 18- 25 years of age so you know they will be using social media a lot. You can research about what kind of content they like to consume and prepare your content based on their understanding and upbringing they have.

Age

As highlighted in the previous point, you need to know the age bracket of your target audience. Content for an 18-year-old will be quite different from a person who is above 50 years of age and not so involved and interested in social media.

Gender

Knowing the gender of your user persona is also extremely important as men and women have different needs and aspirations. Hence they may consume different types of content as per their needs and requirements.

Location

The location of the buyer persona makes the business understands that whether our majority of the target audience are not hurt by any cultural barriers pertaining to their content. It also gives the business idea as to whether it is feasible for their target audience to access the internet. 

Education level and job title

Knowing the education qualifications and their job title is of extreme importance. It is based one can choose what kind of words to use in your copy or content.

Interests

It will let you know :

1)What all things they like. 

2)What kind of content your target audience mostly consume. 

3)Where are they spend their time on so that you can prepare content accordingly?

Pain points

You need to know what problem your target audience is facing and how your product or through your content, they can get rid of their pain. Pain is the essential element of user persona. With it, we can attach emotionally to the user. 

Goals

You need to know what your target audience wants to achieve. Position your product or your website content as the best solution which will help them get rid of their problem. It helps them reach their ultimate goal in a much better and relaxed way.

Platforms availability and device used

Every business must know what all platforms the majority of their target audience are using. You need to know at what time they are most active and through which device they are landing on to your website.

This information will ensure that business owners optimize their site for both mobile and desktop so that the user does not navigate away from their site. Hence they need to ensure that their website loads fast.

Also, they can repackage their content and make it available on various platforms. Publishing at the time their target audience is most active ensures that they cover the majority of their target audience. 

One needs to provide content based on their needs. Also ensure content is optimized, and relevant changes have been made as per that particular platform for specific user persona.

Negative User Persona

Let me make you understand this concept with the help of a story. Ramesh studies in college. He knows that with just the knowledge which he is getting from college is not enough. Ramesh has big dreams. He wants to become an entrepreneur and want to bring change in other people’s lives.

Ramesh ponders on this and feels that to provide value to others, he first needs to learn and have immense knowledge himself so that he can offer value to others. Hence he makes it a point to give 2 hours daily to his passion for learning by going through various aspects of digital marketing through YouTube videos.

Now here we need to understand that he is still a student and cannot invest huge sum of money in buying paid courses. Hence he takes the help of the internet to increase his knowledge and by joining various relevant digital marketers groups to being in touch with like-minded people in a community.

Do you think he will be the right fit for your business whose ultimate objective is to pitch their products to him? He might consume content by visiting your sites for up-gradation of his knowledge.

But chances of his buying paid product of yours is almost negligible since he’s not looking for paid courses at that point. He is just looking to upgrade his knowledge from wherever he can through free resources as he is a student currently and cannot afford paid courses.

Moral of Ramesh Story?

Just like our buyer persona, we must know the habits, behaviour, and demographics of those people also who would never purchase our product or service. Such people such as Ramesh in this story can be called as a negative user persona. Hence every business should not sell or market to such kind of customers for any reasons whatsoever.

Why Negative User Persona Is Essential?

Creation of Negative Persona is essential for every business to know:

1) Which prospects are draining your resources and time and hence add them all as negative personas in a list?

2) Having a list of negative personas helps you in freeing up resources which can be utilized on prospects that are more likely to purchase your products/services.

3) It allows businesses to save cost on marketing budget by not advertising to negative personas that are of no use for them.

It is essential to collect and make a list of your negative personas also to understand their objections. behaviour, and attitudes, etc. which would help you in utilizing your time and money and efforts on prospects who are much more ideal representations of your real user persona and would convert into a customer for your business in the long run.

It’s up to you now that whether you are able to convert your prospects into your customer that is your ideal customer avatar or you waste your resources, time and money by spending on a negative persona without doing adequate research who will just be a nuisance for your business as he would never buy your product/ service and would ultimately run away from you and your business as he was not interested in buying your product/service at the first place itself.

“The key is it does not matter what story you tell, as long as you make your buyer as your hero.”

Collecting User Persona Information

Let us discuss from where you can obtain information about your buyer persona.

So let’s begin our journey by going through the following points:

Going through the profile of your existing Target Customers

One can go through your current customer’s list and see what all elements they had that you considered them your buyer persona in the first place.

Facebook Audience Insights

If you are running FB ads, then you can target based on elements as collected in step 1 through the use of Facebook audience insights.

Google analytics

You can see through Google analytics from where people are coming to your website that is their location and other information about their demographics.

Customer surveys

You can do the study of your potential prospects in your target market segment.

Reviews/testimonials

You can go through the reviews and testimonials to get an idea or feedback regarding whether your customer likes your product or any changes they require.

By analyzing the negative User persona list

By analyzing and going through your negative persona information, you will be in a better position to arrive at your ideal buyer persona as you already get to know which customer is not fit for your organization.

Bonus: Today, every business or even an individual can create their buyer persona by making use of the free customer persona template tool from Hubspot.

Just go to this link will help you to understand persona creator: – Hubspot Persona

Fill in your details of User Persona in the above link, and you will have done for you buyer persona ready in front of your eyes.