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[Series] Know Your Customer: Defining Audience Personas

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No matter what you’re building, whether it’s a racing game or a calendar app, it’s important to remember the customer who’s at the center of it all. Ask yourself who you’re building this for. Your first answer might be yourself—and it’s good to have passion for the product. But your product will be out in the world, so it’s important to think about who’s really going to use it.

When you know your customer, you can understand their behavior—what they want leads to where they are, and that's how you can get your marketing in front of them at the right time and place. In this three-part series, we’ll explore this topic in depth, addressing the different ways to know your customer—and why it’s important.

First, read on for tips and tools for defining your target audience. Come back soon for parts two and three, which will discuss where to find your target and how to convert them into customers.

Why Does It Matter So Much?

When you create something in a vacuum, or build it with only your own needs in mind, you run the risk of creating something no one needs or wants, even if it's a great product. Knowing your customer forms the basis not only for all of your marketing plans, but also for initial development and ongoing iteration. It helps you decide which features to include, how to write your value proposition, how to monetize your product, how to message your product, and how to price it.

Create a Persona

One of the best ways to define your target—and truly understand them—is to create a persona. In other words, rather than a general demographic, such as “Males 18-30,” create a high-level profile of your most likely customer—and then use it as a framework for decision-making.

  • Name
  • Picture you can associate with them
  • Personality
  • Values
  • Attitudes
  • Interests
  • Relevant characteristics
  • Relevant behavior
  • Spare-time activities
  • Common tasks
  • Goals (especially as it relates to your game or product)

By creating a profile that feels like a real person, you’ll be able to sympathize with their problems—putting you in a much better position to help solve them. For example, if you’re developing an app that reminds people when to feed their fish, the persona you create might be: John, 28, programmer, loves tropical fish, works long hours, eats takeout 5 times a week, loves to cross things off of checklists, watches SportsCenter, plays Mobile Strike on his phone to relax.

Download the worksheet below to get started!

Do Your Research

Creating a persona is a great way of defining and knowing your target audience, but don’t forget to research and talk to people. You need to confirm your ideas and make sure your assumptions are correct.

Surveys and Focus Groups–  If you have budget for primary research, surveys and focus groups can provide a lot of great information. While focus groups allow you to talk in more depth to a smaller group of people, surveys can be distributed more widely—but both can be really helpful in defining who your target is and how you can expect them to behave.

Published Studies– Don’t assume that if you aren’t able to conduct your own research that you’re out of luck. Especially when you're new, it's a good idea to take advantage of the information that already exists. Research on the latest consumer behavior and habits is being published on an annual basis, and there are a lot of experts writing and publishing their thoughts. Look for guidance in some of these places:

  • Industry groups
  • Competitors
  • Google
  • SlideShare
  • Social networks
  • Event organizations (E3, etc)
  • Business school case studies

Now’s the Time to Get to Know Them!

The sooner you define your target audience, the better. So if you’re still thinking through initial ideas, great—you can develop your entire product with your customer in mind. If development is already well underway, or you’ve already released, no need to panic. Now is still the right time, and you can use this thinking to guide your iterations.

Where Do You Go from Here?

The power of creating a persona is that it makes it easier to understand and anticipate consumer behavior. Not just who the customer is, but what their behavior is likely to be. Once you’ve gone through the initial definition process, it’s time to turn toward the customer journey—or the path your target takes as they discover, become interested in, and hopefully buy your product. This will help you anticipate what they may need at each step along the way—and better meet those needs. Check back soon for Part 2 of this series: Know Your Customer! Pick Your Channels.

 

Have you ever created a persona? Tell us about it in the comments!


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