Target Audience Personas: What They Are and How to Create Them
5 min read
Imagine trying to sell a gourmet coffee to everyone.
You wouldn’t – you’d sell to people who love coffee! That’s where target audience personas come in.
A persona is like a semi-fictional avatar of your ideal customer. Creating clear personas helps small businesses focus their branding and messaging on the right people, not on “everyone” and ending up reaching no one. In fact, Dan Smith of Doogheno Growth Marketing says that once you give your audience a name and profile – say “Mary, 34, married, project manager” – “suddenly, you’re thinking about the person, rather than the customer.” This humanises marketing and makes your brand more relatable.
What Exactly Is a Persona?
A target audience persona (also called a buyer or customer persona) is a semi-fictional representation of your ideal customer, built on market research and real data.
As marketing pros note, a buyer persona is “a semi-fictional representation of your ideal customer based on market research and real data”. It usually includes demographics (age, location, income), behaviours, goals, motivations and pain points. Think of it as a one-page profile of a friendly person – perhaps even with a name and photo – that embodies your key customer group.
Customer personas we created for Cáit Gould Ceramics.
Personas are not guesses. They should be grounded in facts (analytics, surveys, interviews) rather than “what you think” your customer is like. A well-crafted persona stops you from targeting a vague “everyone” audience. Instead, you get to tailor your brand voice and content to someone real. For example, if you know your persona is a busy parent grabbing breakfast on the way to school, you’ll speak to that schedule and need.
Why Personas Matter for Small Businesses
For small businesses, resources are tight and every marketing pound counts. Personas ensure you spend time and money on the right audience. They help answer questions like: Who loves our product? What do they care about? and Where do they hang out online? Answering these lets you deliver the right message at the right time. As one marketing guide puts it: without personas, “how do you know what content to create?”.
Using personas also makes personalised marketing possible – and personalised marketing has proven ROI. According to recent data, companies focusing on personalisation see big benefits: fast-growing businesses generate 40% more revenue from personalized marketing than slower competitors. Trendemon reports that users engaging with tailored experiences read 3.9× more pages than those without. In short, when customers feel like you “get” them, engagement soars. On the flip side, irrelevant messaging costs you: 77% of customers say they feel frustrated by irrelevant promotions. Personas keep you from being generic and help you build real connections.
Personas also tie directly into your broader brand strategy. Knowing your audience is a core part of defining your brand’s voice and position (see our post “What Is Brand Strategy and Why Is It Essential for Startups?” for more on that). When your brand persona and target audience persona align, everything from your logo to your social media posts starts to speak the same language. You’ll sound more consistent and trustworthy because you’re truly speaking your customer’s language.
How to Create Your Target Audience Persona
Building a persona sounds fancy, but it’s really a step-by-step research project. Here’s a practical approach:
1. Gather research.
Look at your customer data and analytics. Who’s already buying or engaging? Use tools like Google Analytics, Facebook Insights, or even your sales data to identify trends (age groups, location, purchase habits, etc.). Talk to your sales or support team – they meet real customers daily and can share common traits. And don’t forget to survey or interview actual customers if you can. Ask them about themselves: their challenges, goals, where they spend time online, and why they chose your business.
2. Identify patterns and segments.
Once you have data, look for clusters of similar traits. For example, you might find one group is young, urban foodies, another is budget-conscious parents. Each group could become a separate persona. As Dan Smith advises, create three to five personas to cover the main segments, because typically “three to four buyer personas usually account for over 90% of a company’s sales”. (No need to model every tiny niche – focus on the big players first.)
3. Build persona profiles.
For each segment, write a brief bio. Give them a name, age range, job or lifestyle descriptors, and photo (you can find free stock portraits online). Detail their =goals, motivations and pain points. What do they want? What problems keep them up at night? How can your product or service help them? Include quotes or behavior examples if you’ve interviewed customers. Keep it concise – a paragraph or bullet list. Example: “Busy Parent Paula: A 36-year-old project manager with two kids. She values quick, healthy meals and will pay a bit more for convenience. Her pain point is lack of time and cooking ideas. She reads parenting blogs and shops at the local market.”
4. Use and refine the personas.
Share these personas with everyone in your team. They should guide your marketing decisions: content topics, ad targeting, even product features. When you write a social post or design an email, imagine you're talking to one of your personas. Over time, revisit and tweak your personas as you learn more (customer tastes change, after all).
To make this process even easier, you can use templates or checklists.
They are easily findable online, for example LocaliQ and HubSpot both provide a free persona templates. You can also download ours for free:
Any of these tools will remind you of the questions to ask and keep your research focussed.
Let’s look at a couple of fictional examples to illustrate.
A small artisan bakery: Berkshire Bakes in my hometown, Newbury, might discover two key personas:
1. Morning Mum Maria:
a 34-year-old working mom grabbing a takeaway coffee and breakfast on the school run, and…
2. Weekend Foodie Frank:
a 28-year-old city worker who loves trying new artisan breads on Saturday.
By profiling these, the bakery knows to push quick-grab deals early AM to Maria (catch her on Instagram before school drop-off) and later tap into Frank’s foodie passion (maybe email him a recipe or a new sourdough launch on Thursday night). The result? More relevant social posts and promotions, and likely more sales from those groups.
Similarly, a UK craft brewery in say, Cornwall might focus on:
1. Outdoor Adventurer Alex:
a 30-year-old who goes hiking and enjoys craft ales afterward. Alex cares about sustainability and unique flavours. The brewery would highlight local ingredients and eco-friendly brewing on its website and ads. Maybe they even host a hiking-and-beer event. Without this persona focus, the brewery’s marketing would risk being too bland or broad.
2. Remote Worker Rosie:
Rosie is 41, lives in Bristol, and works remotely for a creative agency. She visits Cornwall a few times a year with her partner and dog, and likes to bring a bit of her holiday home by ordering craft beer online. She cares about good design, sustainability and supporting independent makers, which makes her an ideal target for thoughtful packaging and seasonal releases.
This persona helps the brewery build loyalty beyond their local area, with email, subscription boxes and Instagram all playing a big role in how they stay connected.
Ready to give personas a try? Start simple, and remember you can always refine them later. For many small businesses, just one or two well-defined personas make all the difference.
Download our Brand Persona Template: Kickstart your research with a free target audience persona worksheet. (Use it to gather key info and sketch out your first persona!)
Or get expert help: We love helping local businesses craft powerful personas and brand strategies that speak directly to customers. Contact us to book a workshop or chat. (Not nearby? No problem – we can help you remotely too.)
Target audience personas may sound like a marketing buzzword, but they are practical, actionable tools. By understanding who your customers really are, you’ll make smarter decisions – from product development to social media posts – and that can transform your brand’s impact.
