How to create a customer persona so you can create content your customers LOVE!

Let me just start by saying the famous words of Seth Godin “Everyone is NOT your customer.” That’s right say it again for the people at the back Everyone is NOT your customer.”

Not everyone needs your product or service and when you start trying to sell something to people that simply don’t want it, it’s going to be much harder. Perhaps not impossible but very hard. You can make this much easier for yourself by simply understanding who your customers are!

You can’t sell to everyone because everyone has different problems, needs and motivations.

When you understand who your customers are you can serve them content THEY need to help them buy from you.

When it comes to creating content on social media you have to understand your customer because if you don’t they won’t be interested in engaging with the content you create and you’ll be wasting your time.

It’s really easy to post content about your own products, yourself, your services etc and why they/you are so amazing but social media content should not be all about YOU the business. It’s about your customer and what they need in order to trust you and buy from you.

You can only create relatable and interesting social media content that builds trust and motivates your customer to buy if you truly know who they are.

So let’s look at how to create a simple persona but first here is what a customer persona should not be:

Personas shouldn’t be about demographics, personas should be about problems and challenges people face as displayed beautifully here by Warwick Allchorn

Creating a customer persona

Here are some simple questions you can ask yourself before creating social media content or when creating a simple persona.

1. What need does my typical customer have?

2. What does my typical customer look like?

3. What motivates my typical customer?

Let’s examine all of these questions:

What need does my typical customer have?

Think about what need does your product or service solves for them? 

Asking this question will help you to get to the core benefit of your product or service.

What does my typical customer look like?

What is the typical age of your customers,

What is their gender, do they have a certain education level, do they have a certain level of income?

What motivates my typical customer?

Are they motivated by money or discounts?

Are they motivated by friends’ opinions? 

Or, are they motivated by extra care for customer service?

B2B – Services

It’s helpful to add information about your customer’s job role or the roles of the gatekeepers you may have to talk to. 

Example: You sell security services to businesses that own buildings. But you won’t be targeting the owner of the building but the Facilities Manager.

What problems does the facilities manager have?

What will motivate them to buy or contact you?

Defining your audience

By having a clearly defined target audience you will be able to craft content that is more likely to resonate and

engage them.

So before you begin crafting your posts, think about these three questions to help you define your target audience.

1. What needs does my typical customer have?

2. What does my typical customer look like?

3. What motivates my typical customer?

Research your customers.

• Ask your existing customers about themselves why they buy from you and what problems they have.

• Poll your existing social media community and find out who they are, where they are in their careers or what type of help they are looking for. 

• Sometimes, we find new customers for our products or services that we hadn’t considered before.

To recap:

• Remember you are creating content for your customer not you! So having a good understanding of them is very important. 

• Try to add as much detail about their problems and motivations as you can.

• Don’t rely on demographics alone, Ozzy and Charles have the same demographics but not much else in common.

• Create content that is going to educate, excite, motivate and be relatable to your target customer.

• To motivate them to act, use a call to action that will motivate them to do something your business cares about.

• Research your existing community and customers to find common themes and problems.

This post was written by Lucy Hall. You can access Lucy’s full talk on the Buyer Persona in the Members Club Library.