What is a User Persona?

“What do my customers want?”

It’s something every business wants to know.

While customer needs are constantly changing, past strategies and last year’s sales reports may not always give you the right answer.

Locking down the ideal user personas for your business can provide a good understanding of what your website visitors seek in your products and services – as well as the motivations behind their actions.

Firstly, what do we mean by a user persona?

A user persona is a fictional representation of your real-world customers portrayed purely in terms of how they interact with your website. It is a consolidated document containing the customer’s interests, background, personality, and various other details.

These ‘character’ profiles are then used to make web decisions with the users in mind throughout. They essentially complement your use of data in working out your web approach.

Asking yourself questions on whether or not a customer will engage is made much easier to visualize once this sort of profile is considered.

For example:

Will John be interested in our premium package?

Will Mary engage with a more modern web design?

Is Bob likely to watch our video tutorials?

Using this approach allows you to make web design decisions that are user-focused, will save you on development costs, and significantly improve your user experience.

The importance of user personas

User personas are important because they help you understand your target audience.

By creating a persona, you can better understand what motivates each user, what their needs and wants are, and how to best reach them.

Personas also help you create more targeted content and journeys that resonate with your audience. When done correctly, personas can be a powerful tool in your marketing arsenal.

Common mistakes when creating user personas

When creating a user persona, it is important to avoid making common mistakes that can lead to an inaccurate representation of your target audience.

One common mistake is failing to include enough demographic information. It is important to include things like age, location, and occupation when creating a persona. This information helps you better understand who your target audience is and what their needs may be.

However having said this, another common mistake is making too many assumptions about your target audience. So it’s important to consider demographic information carefully.

Just because someone is from a particular demographic, it does not mean that they will have the same interests as others in that group. It is important to get to know your target audience on an individual level so that you can create a persona that is truly representative of them.

To achieve this, you should speak to real users from each group and gather their perspectives wherever possible.

A final common mistake is the overgeneralization of your target audience. While it is important to have a general idea of who you are marketing to, it is also important to remember that each person is an individual. Creating a persona that is too general can lead to ineffective marketing campaigns and a loss of potential customers.

By avoiding these common mistakes, you can create a user persona that is accurate and representative of your target audience. This will help you create more effective marketing campaigns that resonate with your audience and lead to conversions.

Get to know your users

We’ve covered some of the key areas of user-profiles in this blog. If you want to get into more details on what exactly you need to do to create the personas of your users, contact us!