Is your website consumer experience focused on customer personas? Just like an effective brand will target a specific set of customers to reach their overall revenue targets, an effective website must target customer personas to increase conversions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Today, when you target your site at a broad audience, you\u2019re missing the opportunity to reach your real customers. This is because a site designed for everyone is a site that converts no one.<\/p>\n\n\nA site designed for everyone is a site that converts no one. <\/a><\/span>Share on X<\/a><\/span>\n\n\n\n One of the best ways to align your site with your specific audience, and increase conversions, is to develop customer personas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Customer personas are composite descriptions of your general customer types, based on research. They help you summarize key elements of your customer in a more tangible way. This in turn helps inform your content strategy, brand presentation, and optimize for conversions online. In addition they can create greater clarity for your internal teams.<\/p>\n\n\n\n How do you build customer personas? Start by clearly defining your customer types according to these three categories:<\/p>\n\n\n\n These are your client\u2019s day-to-day responsibilities and reporting structure. Is the target role an entry level employee or a VP? You should know the business challenges they face, their responsibilities, and their purchasing authority. For example, a business software provider should know the difference between a developer and a CIO.<\/p>\n\n\n\n These are your client’s business characteristics. This category explores new and existing client opportunities. Start by looking at key elements of their business such as:<\/p>\n\n\n\n This classification represents buyer groups with similar behaviors. For example, McDonald\u2019s has many different cohort groups \u2013 one of these groups can be referred to as \u201cpeople that do not buy their food\u201d. Some may love cheeseburgers but don’t choose to go to McDonald\u2019s while others don\u2019t eat cheeseburgers because they don\u2019t like them. Either way, they fit into the same cohort; those that don\u2019t buy food at McDonald\u2019s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Once you understand who your customers are and which cohorts they belong to, tune your site\u2019s copy, navigation, and content to each. This will help you shape your digital strategy and allow you to tailor content to each customer type.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Let\u2019s use the business software provider mentioned earlier as an example. Ideally, this company has defined 3-5 of their highest priority client roles, client types and cohort groups. Imagine that one of the highest priority client types is an IT Director for a mid-sized financial services company named Joe. A Customer Persona for Joe looks something like this:<\/p>\n\n\n\n All this must inform the online lead generation experience you create. Does the content on your site connect with Joe\u2019s needs and interests? If yes, it\u2019s much more likely that your site will be a recurring destination for Joe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If your goal is to convert Joe and others in his cohort into customers, here\u2019s how you might align your web experience with Joe, based on his buying cycle:<\/p>\n\n\n\n One of Joe\u2019s pain points is security breaches. Create a section of your site completely dedicated to the latest trends and best practices for dealing with a breach. Joe watches webinars and reads white papers. Make sure there are good calls-to-action within the content and the information architecture leads Joe further down the sales funnel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Joe has to deal with people bringing in their own mobile devices and apps, which can lead to security breaches. This is a great opportunity to craft your site in a way that demonstrates how your company can help him deal with these problems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Joe is influenced by many factors, including your competition. Make sure your portfolio includes case studies and client results to boost your company over the competition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Are there cross-sell promotions that you want to highlight? Special deals? This content will help move Joe toward making a purchase.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It may be the case that most of your sales occur based on an offline lead nurturing program. Consider whether your site leads Joe to interact with your sales staff. Can he register for an asset or engage over chat? Is there a phone number he can call with a real person on the other end?<\/p>\n\n\n\n These examples should provide the strategy and basic framework for persona development.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In our experience, the best ways to start include:<\/p>\n\n\n\n You should also note that customer personas will constantly change according to what is happening in the market. It is wise to refresh your personas every few months (based on market trends) to continue improving engagement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Remember – customer personas are an essential ingredient in an effective data-driven digital strategy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n They not only help you draw better visitors\u00a0to your site, but they will also help those visitors convert.<\/p>\n\n\n\nWhat are customer personas?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
How to Build Customer Personas<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Client Role<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Client Type<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Cohort Group<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Working Through An Example<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Working With The Purchase Cycle<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Buy Cycle Stage: Awareness<\/em><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Buy Cycle Stage: Consideration<\/em><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Buy Cycle Stage: Preference<\/em><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Buy Cycle Stage: Purchase<\/em><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
How to start your customer persona<\/h2>\n\n\n\n