Target audience & persona
The target audience is the group of people or businesses an offer should reach; a persona is a concrete, exemplary profile of a typical person from that group.
“All businesses” is not a target audience. The clearer it is whom you want to reach, the more precise messages, channels and design become — and the less budget goes to the wrong people.
A persona makes the audience tangible: role, tasks, problems, pre-purchase questions, preferred channels and what convinces them. It helps the whole team think from the customer’s perspective.
Personas should be based on real insights — from customer conversations, sales and data — not on assumptions made at a desk.
What to look out for
- Analyse your best existing customers: what do they have in common?
- Talk to some customers and record their questions and reasons.
- Describe two or three personas, not ten.
- Record which message and channel fit each persona.
- Regularly compare personas with new insights.
Common mistakes
- The audience is so broad that every message becomes generic.
- Personas are invented instead of derived from real conversations.
- Personas are created and never used again.
Frequently asked questions
The target audience describes a whole group by characteristics; the persona is a concrete example profile from it that makes needs, questions and behaviour tangible.
Usually two or three are enough. More are rarely used consistently.