Whether you are starting a new business or expanding an existing business, one of the most important things you can do is establish who your ideal client is. How do you do that? Let me introduce you to your key client persona!

What is a Client Persona? 

A client persona, also known as a customer or buyer persona, is an archetype of your company’s ideal customer. It’s a hypothetical individual that possesses key elements of your company’s target audience. Personas include demographic information like age range, gender, location, and level of education along with psychographic details such as motivations, concerns, and values. There are most likely many different types of customers that your company may interact with, and creating client personas will help you to pinpoint and create focused marketing for your target audience. Your company may have a multitude of client personas, based on the different products and services you offer. These personas will assist you in gaining insight to target your real prospective customers.

Why Should You Create a Client Persona?  

Client personas help you visualize your ideal customer and allow you to gain a deeper understanding of the type of person that your company should be targeting. The personas you create allow you to gain important insights into your target audiences’ needs and behaviors. As a result, you can create more personalized content tailored to your target customer. With a clear client outline, you can formulate a focused marketing message and deliver it in the most effective method to reach your target audience.  In addition to gaining marketing knowledge, client personas are also useful for content creation and product development. 

On the flip side, it can be useful to consider negative personas. These negative personas can be used to identify the types of customers that are not a good fit for your company and brand. No one wants to waste time and money on attracting the wrong people.  

How to Find/Create Your Client Persona?

Research and analysis are key in creating an accurate customer persona. Begin by collecting data from your current customer base, use this information to identify trends and patterns. In addition, to better analyze your target audience, conduct interviews, and surveys with current and prospective customers.

Think about:

• What are the demographics (age, location, income, etc) and typical background of your target audience? 
• What are their motivations and interests?
• What do they value in a brand?
• What are their goals and values?
• What are their concerns and challenges? 
• What are their buying patterns?

Here are some more resources on creating client personas: 

• How to Create Detailed Buyer Personas for Your Business [Free Persona Template]
• The Beginner's Guide to Creating Marketing Personas

How to Get the Most Out of Defining Personas

Keep your client persona at the forefront in all aspects of your business, from your marketing strategy to product development, to sales, and customer service. Identifying your customers' behaviors, challenges, needs, and wants can help you improve your products in addition to developing new product lines. Use your personas to determine which social media platforms and channels your customers interact with the most. Think about: What type of content will they be most receptive to? What communication style do they use? What type of tone and language would they prefer?  By understanding your audience completely you are able to communicate with them most effectively.

The Importance of Keeping Personas Up to Date

So you’ve created a client persona. Are you done now? Not quite. As your business grows and develops, it’s important to update those personas. The larger your business grows the larger your customer pool will become. This new and evolving customer base can and should be used to regularly reanalyze the metrics of your key client persona. An important and effective way to keep your target audience in check.