Using Personas for a Startup

Congratulations – you’re part of a start-up company! Whether you’re the owner or just a part of the team, you’re still a critical piece of the company. While you’ve likely handled a lot of different (and possibly unfamiliar) areas so far, there’s one area you can’t afford to miss – that’s building your company’s persona.

To put it simply, a buyer persona is a representation of what your average customer looks like. You’ll answer questions like: Who’s going to need what you offer? Where can these people be found? How can they find you?

And though the Internet has helped clear up some of these issues, you still need a clear, condensed group of individuals to target your service or product to. But how exactly do you get started? Here’s how you want to start building personas for your start-up.

First, start with the basics by mapping out the demographics of your buyers. What’s their gender, age range, level of education, area of work, and where they live? One thing that might make this easier is coming up with a name for your buyers. For example, if you’re in the benefits business, you might call your target audience member “Benefits Ben” or “Benefit Betty.”

Dig a little deeper and figure out their likes. Where do get together? Do they use a lot of social media sights or do they prefer to share information in forums?

Using your real-life customers, gather up a few quotes along the way. Get feedback to really breathe life into your buyer personas. Ask them for quotes or feedback as you get them on the phone, whether it’s through an interview or a survey. If that isn’t doable for your audience, try checking out social media networks or various other forums to gather quotes. These quotes and feedback can provide you with a jumping pad to make your next move. Whether it’s an area that needs more focus or a problem that needs to be solved, it can give you just enough to get things moving.

Then you want to figure out what your buyers care about and what they consider to be important.  When they use your product or service, what is their goal? What do they consider value? Is their focus on quality or price?

When your start-up decides to get involved with the process of figuring out a buyer persona, there is one way to make sure you hit the target the first time around – with Frictionless. With their knowledgeable team of experts, Frictionless doesn’t just unlock the personalized persona for your company – we will also put it to good use. We can help you come up with a plan of attack, so your marketing and sales team can go in prepared. It’s the best way to get your startup off on the right foot, as you won’t have to play the guessing game with who your target audience is. Rather, you will have a clear target, so you will know exactly where to aim.