20 Questions to Help You Sketch Your Target Customer Persona

Vũ Khôi

Author at Wotech Electronics Blog

The buyer persona (buyer persona) is considered the seed of every marketing campaign. The marketing team needs to know who they are trying to reach and win over, while the sales team needs to know what kind of people they will be selling the product to.

If this is your first time sketching a customer persona, or you have failed many times at identifying them, try answering the 20 questions below to get a more accurate picture of your "gods" — the customers you serve.

20 things you should look at when identifying your target audience

Just as a painting is completed from basic strokes, your customer persona is made up of 20 different elements. We have tentatively grouped them as follows:

• Personal background

• Work environment, position, and role

• The difficulties and challenges customers have experienced (related to the product line you want to sell)

• The customer's future goals

• How the customer has researched the product they need to buy

At the end of the article, we will briefly outline the steps to take once you have your buyer sketch.

Questions about the buyer's personal background, to help you establish who they are at a basic level

• Demographic description

Marital status, children, annual income, current place of residence, gender, age. This information lets you draw the first strokes of your target customer persona.

• Educational background description

What is the target customer's education level (high school, university, postgraduate…), which school did they attend, and what did they study? The answer should be specific — for example, "studied at Boston University," rather than "university, liberal arts major."

• Career history description

Did they work in the field they studied? What position have they reached, and what has their career path looked like? Have they stayed in this profession, or have they moved on to a different line of work?

Questions about work environment and position, to help you reach and communicate with customers better

• What field do their current company and previous employers operate in?

The answer here isn't about which department they work in or what their daily tasks are — what we need to know precisely is what products/services their company provides. This helps us better gauge how that industry influences the customer we are targeting.

Broadly speaking, this question also depends on the challenges they have faced during their career; the answers in this section are valuable information too, because they help us understand their company's workflows and culture, and how these affect employees.

For example, suppose the customer works in environmental services — that's all the job description tells us. But if you know their main clients are schools and hospitals, the best answer would be: They operate in the environmental services industry, serving education and healthcare clients.

• What is the size of their company (revenue, headcount)?

Knowing specifics about the customer's company — industry, size, number of employees, and other details — helps us build better landing page forms.

• What is their job role and title?

Questions like: What is their role at work, and how long have they held this position?

• Are they working as an employee or in a management role?

If the customer works at a B2C company, we can treat this information as another way to understand different aspects of the customer. If it's a B2B company, this information becomes even more important. Is our customer a manager or a director? Are they fluent in the complex specializations of our industry? If so, they won't need as much initial hand-holding as a typical new customer.

• How is their work measured?

What are the items the customer is responsible for? What numbers or charts do they need to track every day? These details help us determine why they succeed and what they might worry about when it comes to "hitting their work targets."

• What does a typical workday look like for them?

What time do they get to work, and what time do they leave? What do they do when they're at peak productivity? What does their "busy job" actually look like? All of this includes both the tasks they perform for their job and what happens during their day outside of work. Do they spend more time at the office or at home? Which do they prefer? What do they usually do for entertainment? Who is the most important person in their life? What car do they drive? What TV shows do they watch? What kind of clothes do they wear?

• What skills does their job require?

What skills are essential for their job, and does your customer use them well? Did they pick these skills up on the job, or by taking a course?

• What knowledge and tools are applied in their work?

Which applications and tools does the customer use in their daily work? Understanding which products they love (and dislike) using can help us identify common ground with our own product (and adjust ours accordingly).

See more: 4 myths about B2B digital marketing and the truth behind them

Questions about the challenges and difficulties customers have experienced

• What are the customer's biggest challenges?

We are trying to sell customers a solution to their problems, so we need to know what those problems are and how they affect the customers' daily lives.

Example: Suppose our company sells personal tax software directly to consumers. One of our customers might be a first-time tax filer. So ask: what are the pain points of filing taxes for the first time? They may struggle the first time they file on their own, feel overwhelmed by tax codes they don't understand, and be confused about where to start. These difficulties differ from those of a seasoned filer.

Try to come up with real quotes that capture these challenges. For example: "It used to be really hard to get the whole company to adopt new technology," or "I don't have time to train new employees on a million different databases and platforms."

Questions about the customer's future goals, to help you sell to them better

• What are the customer's goals?

This goes beyond the metrics we can measure. What is their primary goal at work? What about their secondary goals? Knowing these things helps you understand what you can do to help your customers achieve their goals and overcome their challenges.

• What can you do to help them?

What can you do to help the customer solve their problems or achieve their goals? Researching this question helps you develop a better product/service and shows you how to win customers' trust.

How has the customer researched the products/services they need?

• How do customers find new information for their work?

If you plan to market and sell to these customers, you need to know where they get their information. Do they search online, do in-person research, or read newspapers and magazines? If they are regularly online, do they visit social networks or search on Google? Who do they get information from: friends, family, colleagues, or industry experts?

• What publications or blogs do they read?

Try piecing the information together to map out their day and find out where customers regularly go for updates. Once you know how they gather information, we can put ourselves in the customer's shoes, be present where they are, and build greater credibility with them.

• Which communities and social networks does the customer participate in?

We should invest time and resources into marketing on social platforms. The key questions: Which social networks deserve our time and resources compared to others? Identify the groups and social networks our customers spend time on, then prioritize creating accounts and joining the conversations there.

• How do they prefer to interact with sellers?

The buying experience we offer must match customer expectations. What should their buying experience look like? Do they need consultation? How much time do they want to spend with a salesperson? Do they prefer shopping in person, or interacting online or over the phone?

• Do customers go online to research vendors or products? If so, how do they search for information?

We need to dig deeper to find out where customers look for information. Do they search the web, check review sites, ask friends and family, or do something else?

• Describe a recent purchase

Ask why the customer chose to buy that item, what their evaluation process was, and how they made the purchase decision.

If we can anticipate customer objections, we can also prepare sales collateral for them throughout the buying process. What might draw their attention to our product — or to any competitor in our industry? Is this the first time they have bought a product or service of this kind? If not, what made them switch products or services?

What should we do next to turn them into our customers?

Once we have completed the points above and resolved any remaining questions, browse some stock images and find a real photo to associate with the customer. Through the questions above, we need to form a clear picture of exactly who our target customer is — this makes the messages we deliver to them far more consistent.

Another small tip: try to identify the customer so you can adjust your communication style. How do you know who you're talking to? What is their job? How do they conduct a conversation? What are they worried about? How did they find out about our company? Once you've pieced all of this together, it not only helps you recognize your own customers but also uncovers other customer segments — so your company's staff can maintain a consistent core message while still tailoring it to each customer group.

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