My undergraduate degree is in Marketing. So, I should have known better. For God’s sake, I teach every entrepreneur I coach to build one. I have my team, in my day job, building them out as we speak.
Still, somehow I managed to launch a new business this year without practicing what I preach. Unbelievable 🤦♂️. I guess sometimes it is easier to be the coach than the player.
What did I forget to do? I didn’t take the time to complete a user persona. Trust me, it's a big deal. If you don’t take the time to create a user persona, then most likely, you are wasting money and time on the wrong prospects for your business.
So, I fixed the problem. At the end of this article, you can get a copy of the template I created for charting out my own business’s user persona.
What is a user persona?
Imagine the perfect customer for your business. The customer that absolutely loves what you are doing, buys from you often, is happy to pay full price, and tells everyone else about your business. That is your user persona.
If your answer is “anyone” or “everyone,” you are doing it wrong.
If you have an existing business, then this should be easier for you. But don’t be lazy. People that are buying what you sell aren’t necessarily your perfect customer. They might be too demanding or unwilling to pay your full price or some other challenge.
If you have a new business, you should be interviewing prospects to gather intel about them, their needs and wants, what they are willing to pay, etc.
One of your most important Marketing tools
A user persona (shortened to UP, because we all know how I hate typing the same word out over and over) is one of, if not the most important tools in your Marketing tool belt.
Why?
Because it helps you focus your Marketing efforts and dollars toward the customers that are 1) most likely to buy from you; 2) the least likely to be a challenge to satisfy.
You might make sales even if you don’t know your user persona. But you aren’t making as much money 💵 as you could be making.
Tell me about her
You should know your business’s user persona at a level of intimacy that makes your spouse angry. Like, serious jealousy. I call mine Lee. You can call yours whatever you want. Just don’t call your spouse by that name.
There is a lot of information that goes into a well-thought-out UP (I just now remembered…) that you shouldn’t skip. I mean, a lot of information.
A UP includes demographic information such as name, gender, and age. As well as psychographic information about how they think, their attitude, and their affiliations.
You should even go so far as to be able to describe their decision-making progress, their career, their height, and their hair color (I love me some brunette 🙋🏻♀️, hi honey).
If you can’t describe them in that kind of detail, and then some, you need to do more research. Don’t just settle for quick and easy answers. If you are going to go through this exercise at all, take the time to make it worth the effort. Your advertising dollars will thank you.
Earlier I offered to share with you the UP (I remembered again!) template I created for my own business(es). It is completely free, but you will need to have Notion.
Notion is a platform that combines note-taking, to-do lists, CRM, journaling, and more into one solution. I recommend trying it out. The link below is my affiliate link, but they even have free plans.
To get a copy of my User Persona template, click the button below. You will need to click on the … and then duplicate the template to your own Notion dashboard.