In this post we show you several customer persona examples, so that you can make your owns. We start with a brief definition, and then we move on with the examples. To better present you with customer persona examples, we will also tell you which industry they relate to.
What is a Customer Persona?
Customer Persona Definition
Before we dive into the customer persona examples, a quick definition. What is a customer persona?
A customer persona is the archetypal type of customer. It is a fictitious representation of your average customers.
I know this customer persona definition may sound somewhat abstract, but it is not. It is way simpler than you think. Simply put, imagine you listed all the customers you ever had: they will have something in common, while being different on other things. A customer persona is a definition (generally a brief text) talking about things they have in common.
Let’s make a clear example. Imagine you own a store selling products for newborn babies. Chances are, most of your customers will be pregnant ladies. So, that can be a common trait of your customers.
Customer Persona Segments
You don’t have to write just one customer persona to represent your entire customer base. In fact, you may have several. A general recommendation is to have a few, I would say 4-8 customer personas. If you have less, they are not enough detailed to represent difference nuances of different customer types. If you have more, you will have too many details not adding any value.
So, continuing with our store for newborn babies, we may add two other persons: new fathers, and even new mothers in the first months of life of their children. They will have different interests, needs and desired from one another, and will also be different from pregnant ladies.
What are the components of a Customer Persona?
We know that a customer persona is simply a description of your archetypal customer. This description should touch the following points, and it is recommended to have a paragraph for each:
- Demographic – This identifies the person in general, expected age range, gender, employment, income, geographical area or other demographic traits (e.g., have recently moved in this city, has recently got a promotion, has recently married etc.)
- Objectives and Motivations – This is the key, the most important part. What are the objectives and motivations that drive this person to seek our services? What is he looking for?
- Pain Points – This goes together with objectives and motivation. Pain points are the problems the customer is facing and trying to solve, ideally with your products or services. Pain points often lead to objectives and motivation.
- Common Objections – Why hasn’t the customer purchased your product just yet? Often, there is some reason for which the customer believes your product or service will not address his pain points and will not help him achieve objectives and motivations. This is a common objection, and you will see that all customer that have the same persona tend to have the same objections. For example, “it is too expensive”, “what if it does not give the results I hope for?”, “what about your customer service?” and so on.
- Interests – What do this person like? It may be things such as soccer, going out with kids, playing videogames, spending time on social media, fashion and more. They help you understand if you may have some levers or common ground.
I think those four are the key items of a customer persona, and you will see them throughout our customer persona examples. However, some people like to go a little further and add a customer persona profile.
A customer persona profile is a description of one individual that is drawn from the customer persona. So, it will include a name, an age, a description of that individual, and even a photo. Of course, everything is made up, but it serves to make the customer persona more memorable. Personally, I do not like this approach because it simplifies too much the demographic. For example, if your customer persona is a male aged 30-40 and you create a profile named “Jack, 35”, you may not get all the nuances that you need.
What I prefer instead is to use descriptive names to “title” customer personas. For example, imagine there is a type of customer that browse your store a lot, makes a lot of questions but in the end, he is just gathering information and not ready to buy. I would call this customer persona “The Explorer”, because he is doing some sort of exploration and he is not ready to commit. The advantage of this approach is that the name of the persona already gives some clues about what the persona looks like. It is extremely helpful when talking with other members of your team.
Bonus Tip: Icons
Most people who like to put a name such as “Jack” on customer persona also like to put pictures, typically stock footage from the Internet. As you know, I prefer a different approach with descriptive names, and this can be done with images as well.
Instead of going with a photo, I try to pic an icon who represents the customer persona as well as a color. The icon may be associated with the descriptive name (ideally), or with the customer persona in general. Instead, I just make up the color in a way that feels right. If I am designing customer personas with the rest of the team, the color should feel right to everyone.
The amazing benefit of this is that you can then color code your customers in your CRM to quickly see which type of customers they are, and potentially even use the icons depending on your CRM system.
The 5 Customer Persona Examples
Now that we have a general idea about the concept, we can go ahead with the customer persona examples. Each is presented with a description that touches the key point of a customer persona: demographic, objectives and motivations, pain points, common objections, and interests. Let’s dive in into our customer persona examples.
To make things easier, each customer persona example is paired with the type of store or industry the customer persona refers to. This can help you have a context and better soak the information in.
Example #1: The Treat-Yourself Type
This customer persona example refers to a customer of a convenience grocery store in an urban area that is open until late, selling quality groceries and foods with a limited selection but with a relatively high price.
Demographic
Young professional or entrepreneur, aged 25-35, typically male, working often late as a knowledge worker, in sectors such as law, finance, consulting, technology and more. Lives within walking distance from our store or works within walking distance from our store.
Objectives and Motivation
Pick a quick-to-prepare meal that tastes good while still being healthy, he wants to treat himself with some good food and recharge from the draining workday.
Pain Points
He does not have time to think about which meals to prepare and have a meal plan for the week, and consequently he often lacks many ingredients at home.
Common Objections
He may think that the food purchased in a store like hours is not necessarily healthier than getting a delivery from a restaurant, which is more convenient in terms of time and probably taste. He does not express his objections to us, he just do not come to the store if he has such objections.
Interests
He is ambitious, interested in career and growth. He often likes to read and go to the gym, it is generally interested in organic food and may want to disconnect from digital communication media from now and then to recharge.
Example #2: Alzheimer
This customer persona example also refers to a customer from the same convenience store. This is because the same store will be able to identify its customers with multiple personas, not just one to fit them all.
Demographic
Student living away from this parents or young professional who just started working, aged 20-28, typically male. He may be a student of liberal arts, or work in any sector but lives within walking distance from the store, often very close (<5min walk).
Objectives and Motivation
Pick an ingredient he forgot to buy last time to prepare his meal. He comes to the store multiple times because he never remembers to buy everything he needs when he is there, so he needs to make multiple trips. He wants a quick experience, quickly finding what he needs and buying it.
Pain Points
He is lacking something he needs and wants a quick fix to that, being able to get that item as quickly as possible. Often, price is a pain point as well as the budget is limited.
Common Objections
The customer may decide to just go without the ingredient and “live without it”, or he may turn to a cheaper store that is more distant but offer better prices.
Interests
This type of customers is significantly interested in socializing with his peers. Other interests may vary, he is generally outdoorsy.
Example #3: Bargain Hunter
Next in our customer persona examples we have the bargain hunter. This refers to a customer of an online store that sells pretty much anything. Think about Amazon.com as the type of store this customer persona examples applies to.
Demographic
Generally male, aged anything between 20 to 45, generally with high school diploma or college degree, has a lot of time at hand and feels somewhat distrustful of system or society and wants to be better or “hack” the system. He can spend a lot of time doing product research, and a lot of time browsing our website.
Objectives and Motivation
He already knows what product he needs; he wants to get from the distributor/reseller who has the best price. He also finds satisfaction in comparing prices and identifying the best vendor, he can spend significant amount of time doing that because it considers it a fun and enjoyable activity, even if not always consciously.
Pain Points
Comparing prices is often a time-consuming task, especially when comparing physical store you have to drive to.
Common Objections
In case the price is higher than competition, this is the main objection. However, he may also weight the delivery time, as he wants to get his hand on his bargain as soon as he decides where to buy.
Interests
Generally enjoys physical crafts and not particularly apt with technology.
Example #4: Impulsive Buyer
We continue our customer persona examples with another profile referring to a customer of the online store from the previous example, much like Amazon.com. As you will see, this customer persona is significantly different from the previous one.
Demographic
Generally female, aged anything between 20 to 40, she has a high school diploma or college degree, and she is a knowledge worker. She considers herself a person of taste and likes physical items as well as custom-tailored discounts.
Objectives and Motivation
Try something new, discover new products, obtain exclusive discounts to feel special or unique. Mainly, she seeks to differentiate herself from her peers through her purchases.
Pain Points
Her wardrobe or her house feel antiquated and boring, and she would like to change things. The main pain point is being stuck in a routine, and purchasing is a way to escape.
Common Objections
She often wonders if the items she buys will be good on her or in her house, and this can be a significant dealbreaker for the purchase. This can be eased with generous and easy return policies.
Interests
She enjoys style and fashion, reads fashion and architecture magazines, likes to hang out with people and showcase her wardrobe as well as her house.
Example #5: The Growth Seeker
We can conclude our customer persona examples with the profile of a customer of a consulting firm. Unlike everything we saw until now, this profile is Business-to-Business (B2B). Yes, that’s right, customer personas don’t have to be exclusively B2C. In fact, in a B2B setting you have often less nuances and are able to identify customer personas more easily.
Note that here demographic is often made differently, instead of relying on age and gender and the like we mainly rely on job role and industry.
Demographic
C-Level executive or director of operation a mid-sized company in the US, privately held and not listed on an exchange. The company is active in the manufacturing sector, typically headquartered in the Midwest, and they are interested in exporting their products abroad. The person contacting is either the Chief Operating Officer (COO), the Chief Financial Officer (CFO), or the Director of Operations.
Often, the person contacting has already participated to our seminars or read our presentations and whitepapers regarding internationalization of manufacturing company.
Objectives and Motivation
They want to be up and running as quickly as possible by reaching foreign markets. They often realize they have an opening or can seize some opportunity and want to act quickly on that.
Pain Points
The size of the company often does not justify an internal law office specializing in globalization and international taxation, and they do not have the experience to set one up. They know they want to go international, but realize they need to be guided.
Common Objections
They want a more personalized service than they could get from the Big Four consulting firms, they fear going with a smaller firm will result in getting a lower level of service than with one of the Big Four.
Interests
The person contacting is often ambitious, interested in self-growth and mostly in networking with its peers in the same industry and also across different industries.
Customer Persona Examples Wrap-Up
In this brief article, we explained what a customer persona is and presented 5 customer persona examples that can help you better understand the concept. Now, it is up to you to create the customer persona that best reflect our customers.
One final suggestion: keep things simple. To do that, I encourage you to write your customer personas on PowerPoint and have one customer persona per slide. This will force you to keep things small.
If you are interested in making your business growth, you can continue with this guide on How to Select a Project.
