Usually when we talk about a target audience, we refer to them as a homogenous segment. For example, we talk about our target as being “women 45-plus who live in the suburbs and have disposable income”.

Usually when we talk about a target audience, we refer to them as a homogenous segment. For example, we talk about our target as being “women 45-plus who live in the suburbs and have disposable income”.

The target audience persona exercise gives us the opportunity to visualise a typical individual within that segment, bringing them to life in a way that makes us really think about how we might realistically connect with, reach and persuade them.

It makes creating messages and writing copy about your product or service so much easier. Include your wider team in this exercise. It is fun and, more importantly, enlightening.

Step 1 - Imagine a typical individual from your first target audience segment.

List basic characteristics and assign them a name.

e.g. Woman in suburbs aged 54. Her name is Robyn.

From this point on, refer to the individual by their name and always talk about him/her specifically, not ‘the group’.

Step 2 - List the individual’s key personal and lifestyle characteristics.

These will include residential location, occupation, ethnicity, family, daily routine, social life, interests.

e.g. Robyn lives in Seatoun. She is married, with three children in their teenage years, Lucy, Paul and Sally. She is an office administrator and has been in the same job 10 years. She has a wide group of friends from university days and work. Her husband is a senior manager. They host dinner parties regularly, but don’t go out much as a couple, etc.

(You can see how much fun this can be; but the most amazing thing is how you begin at this point to really get a sense of your target audience members’ day-to-day life.)

Step 3 - Consider your target audience member’s likely media habits.

What media are they likely to use, how often and where do they get their information, particularly about products like yours. How digitally savvy are they?

e.g. Robyn uses email at work and also has a personal email account. She has a cheap smartphone but generally uses it for texting, with husband, friends and kids. She goes online, usually at night after dinner and dishes, primarily to use TradeMe, look at Stuff.co.nz for news and view daily deal websites. She’ll often research products via Google.

At this point it is possible you may be identifying a distinct mismatch between your existing advertising channels and your target audience member!

Step 4 - Ask yourselves “what can your organisation, service or product do for your target audience member?”.

Now that you understand more about him/her, you can think about what benefits your product offers them. Think benefits, not features.

e.g. Our online interior design catalogue and advice can give Robyn inspiration and confidence to start contemplating an interior design project, and we can make it easy for her to browse and buy products amongst her busy lifestyle commitments. We can enable her to browse products with her husband, since they don’t have time to go shopping as a couple.

Step 5 - Ask yourselves how your target audience member will know about you.

This is where you match their media habits with the channels you could choose for reaching them and communicating your message.

e.g. We could run Google Adwords targeted to keywords Robyn is likely to be searching on. We could advertise on Stuff.co.nz and provide a landing page that encourages her to sign-up for our emails for an incentive that would appeal to her.

Step 6 - Consider any likely barriers to your target audience member naturally engaging with your organisation, product or service.

Once these are identified, you can find ways to address them.

e.g. Robyn lacks interior design confidence, the family has little time for any renovation disruption, she and her husband don’t go shopping together but like to make decisions jointly, she wouldn’t yet know or trust our brand.

* * * Next Steps * * *

Select the members of your team who you will involve in this exercise. It will be even more effective if you involve a loyal customer, a board member, and a successful peer in your industry. Set aside three hours, with a white board or flip chart and run an interactive session, which involves everyone. Assign someone the responsibility of writing up the personas. Test out your personas with further analysis or research if you can, then use them to make key marketing decisions.