How User Persona Examples Take Your Marketing to the Next Level

Your cell phone buzzes as an SMS from your favorite store announces a big sale today. The email inbox is full from various promotions. You login to social media and see influencer posts, ads and other messages promoting various products. The number of ads the average person sees in a day creates a numbing effect. Most people ignore the majority of them.

If you want to grab attention, you must personalize messages. Knowing every customer on an intimate level is impossible. However, you can grab some statistics from your customer database and make educated guesses about who your typical buyer is. Once you have an idea of their traits, you can use the examples and create a user persona that represents the majority of your users.

Why Do You Need User Personas?

Statista says personalization is one of the top marketing strategies for B2C and B2B businesses. They point to the growing revenue in sectors such as customer experience (CX) personalization and optimization software. The market keeps growing because personalization creates effective promotions.

You need user personas for marketing because:

• Directing messages to a persona helps with better communication with the target audience. 
• They keep you from using language or symbols that might be offensive or misunderstood by users. 
• Personas create a common language and terms both parties understand. 
• They define style decisions and guide the purpose of each website page or social media post. 

User personas take your marketing to a new level. Your messages speak directly to the people you want to reach. 

User Persona Examples

The best way to learn how to write a user persona is to look at some examples. Although these are primary personas, you can also have secondary and negative personas. 

1. Sid Winters, Young Professional

A busy professional who doesn’t have time to prepare meals but still wants to eat healthy. He is the ideal customer for Personal Chef Delivery Service. He wants reliable, timely service to avoid having to eat unhealthy fast food. 

Age: 27

Gender: Male

Location: Chicago, Illinois

Education: Bachelor’s Degree

Pain Points: Wants to eat healthy but doesn’t have time to cook.

2. Mary Sunshine, Stay at Home Mom (SAHM)

Mary is a 30-something SAHM with two young children. She is the perfect customer for Flamingo Preschool. Mary wants her children to learn basic information before starting kindergarten. She also needs a break occasionally to complete tasks.

Age: 32 to 35

Gender: Female

Location: Boise, Idaho

Education: High school or associate’s degree

Pain Points: Needs help teaching kids skills for kindergarten. Needs a break from constant child care. 

3. LouAnn Meyer, Retired Grandmother

Retired professional looking for activities to keep things interesting. She is the target audience for Rainbow Days Animal Rescue. LouAnn wants to spend her time on making the world a better place and is interested in volunteering for a worthy cause. She has plenty of free time but also some life experience having had pets most of her life.

Age: 60 to 80

Gender: All

Location: Columbus, Ohio

Education: Any

Pain Points: Worked hard to get to retirement and wants to use their time wisely making a difference in the world. 

4. Nancy Engles, Marketing Manager

Nancy has 20 years of experience in marketing. She leads a team of 10 to complete marketing for a small local restaurant group. She’s planned numerous local events and coupon campaigns to get people into establishments. Nancy has less experience in digital marketing but is looking to branch out.

Age: 42

Gender: Female

Location: Tampa, Florida

Education: Bachelor’s Degree in marketing

Pain Points: Figuring out digital marketing for her team that is productive and time-efficient. 

How to Create User Personas

Note the examples above are fairly simple. You can add as much detail as needed to create a solid persona. The layout should be specific to your company and customers. You may have more than one persona, depending on which audiences you wish to reach. 

Around 62% of people insist on personalized messages. Utilize buyer personas to pull them in and show them you understand their needs. 

Step 1: Research Customers

Take time to research your current customers. Pull demographics from your database. Send out a survey for additional details. Ask what they’d like to see you offer. Dig deep and discover other pain points they have that need solving. Pay particular attention to complaints for clues to improve on current offerings.

Step 2: Look for Patterns

Run the data through AI and see if there are any patterns. For example, all your customers live in the suburbs of Chicago and none in the urban areas or vice versa. Patterns can include demographics, such as age, gender and location. However, they can also include buying habits.

Step 3: Name Personas

When you give your ideal customer a name, it becomes easier to imagine them as a real person. User persona examples should include careers and attitudes. Assign a role to the persona. Are they a young professional? Perhaps your ideal client is a first-time home buyer. Think about how you’d describe your clients.

Step 4: Write Details

You are creating a mock person to represent your average customer, so you can speak to them directly. Write out details as though this is someone you met and spoke with over lunch. What are some little known facts about them? It’s okay to get as specific as you want. Be sure to focus on the problem you can solve for the person. 

Let User Persona Examples Inspire You and Review Your Profiles Frequently

The user personas you use for marketing today may be defunct in a few months. Your customer base will change as your business grows. Set a reminder to revisit details every six months or so. Make any adjustments to the personas and change marketing to reflect new knowledge. Buyer personas are your best path to personalized, highly effective marketing.