Why You Need a Customer Persona for Your Small Business (+ How to Create One)

Customer this, customer that, right? You probably hear it a lot, especially if you’ve spent more than 0.2 seconds on my website. 

But here’s the thing. 

Without your customers, who’s buying your product? Who’s engaging with your perfectly-witty-yet-on-brand caption? Who’s sharing your brand with their family and friends? Who’s asking retailers to stock your product? 

Exactly. 

Your customers are everything. They make up your community, and that’s why my tagline is ‘community-first marketing’. 

Before we get into the tips, I’m going to take you on a trip down memory lane, real quick. Promise.

When I was part of a corporate marketing team I noticed that we rarely thought about the customer. When we brainstormed marketing and content ideas it was always “what’s trending?” “what’s our competitor doing?” “what do we want to see, what do we want to create?” and it seemed…*off* to me. Not to mention the results were sub par.

This doesn’t work because *we* (or in this case, you) aren’t your customer. You might be similar, you might have things in common, but you’re not your customer and creating content for you isn’t necessarily going to speak to your customer. 

And that’s when I started harping on community-first marketing. Community-first marketing puts your customer at the forefront of all that you do so you can speak to them, connect with them, and build relationships with them so they become obsessed with all things *insert your brand here*. 

Okay so now you know why your customer / community is important, let’s talk about your customer persona. 

What is a Customer Persona?

A customer persona is a fictional character that represents your actual customers. Think of it like a summary: it’s a summary of all your customers into one, generalized persona. 

Why Do You Need a Customer Persona?

You need a customer persona so you know who you’re creating content for. A customer persona will help you better understand who your customer is, what motivates them, and how you can relate to them. All of which helps you better understand how to sell to them. 

You’ll use your customer persona daily – when you’re planning your social media calendar,  writing your social media captions, and designing your social media posts. You’ll also use your customer persona when deciding what products to create, who to hire, and how to grow your business.

How Do You Create a Customer Persona?

I walk you through the step-by-step process I use with all of my clients in my guide, How to Use Social Media to Grow Your Business.

For now, I’ll give you a quick overview. 

Step #1: Identify Your Ideal Customer

Your ideal customer is someone who is completely obsessed with your brand and products. They make repeat purchases, they organically spread the word about your brand, and they engage with you on social media. 

I recommend using data to identify your ideal customer, rather than pulling ideas out of thin air. When we’re starting a business we often think we know who our ideal customer is, but once the purchases start flowing we might end up with a totally different demographic. 

Check out your social media insights and Google Analytics to gather data on your customer like age, gender, location, and other identifiers. 

Step #2: The Community Persona Questionnaire 

Now that you’ve gathered data on your ideal customer, you probably know their age range, gender, location, and basic interests. 

But how does that help you create social media content for them? In short: it doesn’t.

Hang on! I didn’t have you do step #1 for nothing. Let me explain. 

This data is a super limited view of your ideal customer and alone it doesn’t give you a clear picture of who your ideal customer is. But it does give you the foundation. 

You can build on that foundation by filling out my Community Persona Questionnaire. 

To create your community persona, work through the following questions intentionally, with as much detail as possible. Consider the conversations you’ve had with your customers, the comments and feedback on your social media posts, and the reviews on your website.

• The Basics: Where does your customer live? What job do they have and why did they choose it? How much do they make? 

• Their Interests: What are their interests and values? How do they spend their free time? What do they like to see on social media? 

• Their Problem: What problem do they have and how do you solve it? Where do they find you and how can you relate to them? 

Now you should have a crystal clear idea of who your community is. 

You should know where they are in their life, what keeps them up at night, and what they want to learn more about, all of which you can use to create social media content that’s tailored to them and their needs.

You’ll also know where to find them on social media, which will help you create your social media strategy.

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