Create customer personas to discover new insights and reveal fresh perspectives for your marketing! This checklist will help you build a robust customer persona.
When you are building a persona, think about your buyers and their influencers, as you might need personas for both. B2C and B2B personas are different as well. For B2C, personal characteristics of your buyer may matter significantly. For a B2B buyer, personal characteristics may not have as much influence, but other factors such as corporate climate and purchasing power certainly will.
This customer persona checklist will get you thinking like your customer. You may need more on less detail than what is listed here, or there may be industry-specific elements you want to include. Use this as a starting point, include information that is most relevant to your business or product, and add additional information that you may need. Check out my more detailed post about building customer personas.
Demographics
Sources: CRM, web and social analytics, industry or sales information. Focus on the ones that matter most for your business or product.
- Age
- Gender
- Household income
- Home / family situation – Relationship status? Children? Living with parents? Are they a caregiver for aging parents/relatives? Single or multi-family home? Roommates? Pets?
- Personal factors, like health conditions, education level, access to transportation, food security, and so forth as might be relevant
- Professional factors, like job title, years of experience, industry, specialization, decision-making, and others that may be relevant
Social / Behavioral Insights
Sources: Customer surveys and research, generational research, other sociological or industry specific research, sales insights and
- Interests – hobbies, day-to-day activities
- Belief systems – religious, political, or philosophical, causes they care about
- Lifestyle factors – urban or rural, work in an office or at home, typical modes of transportation, exercise and eating habits, etc.
- Who are the primary influencers in their lives? Or, who is most likely to influence this purchase decision?
- What and how do they consume media?
- How do they conduct research for a new purchase?
- Are they researching the purchase of this product, and where/how?
- How long is the purchase cycle for this product?
- Who is ultimately making the purchase (i.e. this person directly or someone else) and how much influence does this person have on that decision?
Problem / Solution
Sources: Customer data from your CRM or first-hand research (surveys, focus groups, etc.). Industry data and research.
- What is the problem the customer is facing?
- Do they realize this is a problem? (this is a completely valid question – people often accept the status quo because they do not realize there is another way).
- Are they aware that solutions exist?
- What solutions have they tried? What has worked or not worked?
- How is your solution the best for this customer?
- What will your solution allow the customer to do that they can not do now?
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Read more about building customer personas.
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