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What is a Client Persona? 

A client persona (or buyer persona) is a model archetype of an ideal customer for your business. It’s a fictitious person based on the common attributes of your company’s best buying audience. Personas include demographic information. This may include items like age, gender, location, occupation, income and relationship status. A well-developed buyer persona will also include psychographic details. These are details such as motivations, likes or dislikes, pain points and interests.  Most companies will have multiple personas to represent their top client groups, referring groups, or stakeholders. Sometimes, companies create male and female versions for groups.

The creation of client personas helps to clearly define and segment your audience for marketing content and reveals the buyer insights that drive prospective customers to choose your company. This is incredibly important for small businesses. You cannot be the right choice for everyone. Client personas are focused on the potential customers that are the best fit for your product or service. 

Here’s an example of a client persona for a home buyer. This persona represents an ideal client that a real estate agent or home builder would be interested in reaching and engaging in their marketing efforts.

Sample Client Persona for business marketing.
Sample Client Persona or Buyer Persona

Questions to think about for buyer personas: 

  • What are your audience’s basic demographics? 
  • What are your audience’s educational background?  Interests?
  • Where do they work? Are they in leadership or have seniority? Average income?
  • Describe a typical day in their life.
  • What are their biggest challenges? How does your product/service help them solve a problem? 
  • What are their goals, values and aspirations? 
  • Where do they research or shop online?  
  • What are their questions/concerns about your product/service? 
  • How do they prefer interaction? 
  • Which times would be best for them to engage with and respond to your content?

If you need help determining these types of indicators, the best place to start is with your current customers. We’ve written an in-depth article on How to Conduct Your Own Market Research that may help you as well.

Why Should You Care?

A strong client persona (or buyer persona) brings your best customers into focus. It helps ensure you’re talking to the right person, in the right voice, on the right channel in your business marketing. This information is critical to ensuring your marketing budget is used effectively. Mismatched messaging or ad placement will literally flush your advertising dollars and impede your ability to create positive and relevant brand experiences for your prospects and customers.

Don’t waste your time, budget or energy trying to engage people who aren’t interested or aren’t ready. Taking a little time to define your audience will save you weeks and weeks of lost time and frustration in your business marketing efforts. Here’s a free guide to help walk you through creating a persona like the one shown above for your company’s products or services.

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Ashley is an accomplished designer and marketer who enjoys creating brand identities and visual design. When she's not creating brand visuals or marketing content, you can find her enjoying time outdoors.