Blog 14: User personas to understand your target users

A summary of what we did to understand our ‘target users’ better:

By leveraging the ‘business model canvas’ framework, we analysed the different components of our business.

Now, we needed to dive deeper in understanding our users. For that purpose, we created user personas for each type of a user.

What is a user persona?

A user persona is a character that is a fair representation of your target audience. A persona is presented in a one page or a two page document (see example).

Source: Template sample from Dribble

Please note, user personas must go deeper than the obvious demographic characteristics.

The image below (that I came across on the web) clearly brings out this fact. At a high level both users may seem similar. However, as one analyses further we see both these gentlemen have completely different goals, motivations, skills, attitudes, exposure etc.

Source: An image sourced from the web

In a B2B scenario, the different types of personas across the organisation could include:

· End user

· Management

· IT function

· Other support functions

Within, each of the above personas, there could be different sub-types of personas each with different goals, motivations etc.

In a B2C scenario, there are generally two types of personas:

· End user

· Buyer

Within, each of the above types of personas, there could be different sub-types of personas each with different goals, motivations etc.

Why user personas?

User personas help us:

· understand the users’ point of view

· empathise with users’ challenges and motivations

· make data driven decisions

· understand how our product will add value for our users

Best practices to writing a user persona.

1.Recognise real user behaviour, their goals, and needs: Leverage qualitative and quantitative research to understand real user behaviour. As this helps us segment users better. Wear the empathy hat to understand user goals and needs. Note: Market segmentation is not the same as personas.

2.Create a persona by what really matters: As this will help us develop user centric products. For e.g. we can have a persona that says, ‘dads who love to workout’.

3.Avoid superfluous text: Be mindful to not add unnecessary details into personas. As it may divert or cloud our thinking. A good thumb-rule to follow is that the personas must provide immediate value to the reader.

Finally, to conclude, we must remember to treat personas as a tool to communicate rather than a deliverable or a chore.

Note the difference between customer segments and personas. Customer segments are broader grouping of customers based on shared characteristics. While personas help us create personalised content and messaging that speak directly to individual needs.

Related blogs:

Refer to blog 78 to understand the different types of customer segmentation.

Also refer to blog 77 to understand how to identify the target market?

Jump to blog 100 to refer to the overall product management mind map.

All the best! 😊