Should You Create a Target Persona? | Lead Concepts

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Should You Create a Target Persona?

Image of a target persona.

One of the first things that every business, no matter its industry, needs to understand is the target audience it’s appealing to. A target audience is the primary group of people to which your company’s service or product is tailored. These people will most likely utilize your services, give you repeat business, and spread positive word-of-mouth advertising.

Determining your target audience is exciting for your business because you are taking the first steps toward a deep understanding of your main clientele. It also gives insight into what your business needs to look out for, like your customers’ specific expectations and what they hope to gain from an interaction with you.

Identifying your target audience involves a lot of work. These include geodemographics (a quick snapshot of the broad, overall differences among consumers), psychographics (a consumer’s personal beliefs), media consumption, residency, and more.

With these expectations in mind, you may want to consider creating a target persona or an individual who encompasses the psychographics of your target audience. Personas are great ways to put yourself in your target audience’s shoes so you can understand its wants, needs, and way of thinking. Doing this will allow you to know how to market to your target audience and how to practice client retention. It’s beneficial if it is a demographic you’re not in.

This article will help you build personas and explain some common mistakes you should avoid while creating them. Finally, we’ll give you an example of what an appropriate target persona looks like so that you know exactly how to create one. Let’s jump right in.

How To Create Target Personas

So, you’ve got an idea of your target audience and are ready to specify what a person in that group may look like. The first thing you will want to create is a name. Having a name for your persona makes it much easier for your team to relate to them, meaning you will have an easier time relating to your whole audience. Although this person is fictional, you want them to be as realistic as possible, which makes having a name all the more critical.

The second thing you will need is a face. What does this person look like? Is he male, or is she female? Is this person young or old? Create an overall look of who this person resembles to understand better who you’re servicing.

Third, you need to create a few key traits consistent with the audience’s demographic. These are goals, pain points, values, likes and dislikes, behavioral characteristics, hobbies, and day-to-day activities. Let’s discuss each of these in more depth.

Goals

Everyone has goals in life. They drive us and set us apart from those around us. This means that your target persona needs to have goals, too, and they need to be short-term and long-term. Does your persona hope to retire by 60? Are they working toward a certificate?

Pain Points

Identify some of the recurring issues your persona may run into. Do they have chronic pain? Are they struggling to pay some of their bills? Do these pain points result in long-term worries? Consider the ways your products or services will be able to help them. Addressing these will be helpful when attracting your audience and help you navigate ways to assist a client with similar pain points.

Values

Identify the things that your customer values, whether religious or political. Although your target persona’s values may differ from yours, these are still important to address because the nation is filled with people with varying values. Additionally, identifying your persona’s values will help you appeal to those with similar values.

Likes and Dislikes

Everyone has a goal and has things they like and don’t like. Determining what your persona would like, love, dislike, and hate is essential. These can range from subjects like colors to specific subjects like financial plans. Regardless, you will want to identify these in your persona to understand how to navigate your consumers’ wants and needs.

Behavioral Traits

Identify how your persona acts in multiple situations. How are they when things are going smoothly? Likewise, how does this person react to stress? Does this person have any ticks? These are important to determine because they help you determine the business decisions that your target audience will make.

Hobbies

Hobbies are great ways to practice the things you like, so it’s essential to address any hobbies that your target persona may have. These can include exercising, cooking, painting, and more. What someone’s hobbies could play into the products or services you offer and determine what they select, so you will want to ensure that these are apparent in your persona.

Day-to-Day Activities

This is one of the most necessary things you must address in your target persona. It allows you to walk through the decision-making process of your target audience. Additionally, what this person does daily will help them determine what services they need and what you need to offer them. If someone enjoys reading, it will be implemented into their daily lives, so you will want to make sure that your services address something about their daily interests.

Finally, you will want to list how your target persona fits the demographic. You must address their geographical location, occupation, and marital status.

Common Mistakes To Avoid

Building a persona involves the possibility of making a few mistakes. And that’s expected, especially if this is your first time creating one. Let’s review some common mistakes people make when determining their target persona.

Neglecting To Make A Secondary And Tertiary Audience

Although you will be heavily targeting your primary audience, that doesn’t mean there won’t be people from other demographics/audiences interested in your services. That means you have to be prepared for them as well, and the best way you can do this is to create a secondary and tertiary audience with accompanying personas. Your secondary audience will be the second consumer group you’ll target, while the tertiary group will be the third.

For example, let’s say you’re selling Medicare to your primary audience, typically seniors turning 65. Your secondary audience would be the seniors’ family and friends, who could have some influence on persuading them to enroll.

Your tertiary audience would be those with no direct need for Medicare (i.e., their parents have passed away, and they are too young) but pay attention to commercials or leisurely read related magazines while in the lobby for an appointment.

Only Focusing On The Positives

An unfortunate part of life is that there are tragedies. However, when people create target personas, they don’t consider these tragedies or negatives. We wish life were entirely positive, but making a target person’s life perfect would be unrealistic. To adequately understand the point of view of your target audience, you have to implement realistic and negative traits and concerns.

Only Utilizing “Obvious” Traits

Although target personas are great symbols of your target audience, it would be hard to come across a client who was a cookie-cutter mold of what the audience is. This is for the well-known reason that everyone is different, meaning there is no singular perfect person to target because they likely don’t exist. If you’re selling final expense insurance, it’s easy to think you’re selling it to a senior nearing their life. But that doesn’t mean final expense insurance is limited to them. You could be selling the same policy to someone terminally ill, which could differ from your target persona.

Unquestioningly Creating Personas

Before you can create your target persona, you must understand your primary audience. You must understand everything we’ve already discussed (geodemographics, psychographics, etc.) and how to apply it. A great way to avoid this is to plan out your target persona and then replace traits or characteristics with things you have noticed in actual customers. You also want to keep an eye on current trends and new research to adjust your persona as time passes.

Example of a target persona

This is a quick idea of what your target persona should look like, assuming you want to sell Medicare to seniors on the West Coast.

  • Name: Cheryl Knotts.
  • Age: 64-65 years—Someone this age should expect to receive a lot of advertisements and mail about enrolling in Medicare.
  • Residence: San Jose, Cali. – San Jose has a large senior population with a 49% divorce rate.
  • Description: Cheryl Knotts is a 64–65-year-old woman in San Jose, Cali. She is a soon-to-be-retired sales director known throughout the office for her calm, collected, and likable personality, especially during stressful times. She is married to her husband, Ron, of 23 years. After her first marriage ended in divorce, Ron became her second husband, and the two began to discuss fulfilling their dream of renovating their home. Cheryl has two adult children. She enjoys going to her local gym and volunteering at her church, where she is active. Cheryl’s most significant pain point is taking the time to understand her retirement, finances, and potential Medicare plan. She has trouble finding time to sit down and concentrate on Medicare, especially because she likes to be active when she has a spare moment. She also struggles to prioritize her savings, meaning it’s typical for Cheryl to spend money on “fun” things rather than save it. Cheryl mainly consumes her media through print advertisements or on her television. Although she has a phone and desktop computer, she struggles to stay current on it and does not like social media. If she’s not at work, Cheryl will spend her days exercising and outings with her friends and family.

Summary

Every agent or company should create a target persona because it allows them to relate to and identify with their audience. When creating a target persona, you want to consider this person’s goals, pain points, values, likes and dislikes, behavioral traits, hobbies, and day-to-day activities.

Visit Lead Concepts’ blogs today for tips on lead generation and other aspects of the insurance world.

 

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