customer-persona

name	customer-persona
description	Creates detailed customer personas with demographics, psychographics, buying behaviors, and messaging preferences for targeted marketing.
allowed-tools	Read Write Glob
metadata	{"author":"matthewhitcham","version":"1.0"}

Customer Persona

When to Use This Skill

Use this skill when you need to:

• Create detailed ideal customer profiles for marketing and product decisions
• Define target audience segments with demographics, psychographics, and behaviors
• Build messaging frameworks tailored to specific customer types
• Align team members around a shared understanding of who the customer is

DO NOT use this skill for market research, competitor analysis, or customer segmentation of existing data. This is for building persona profiles.

---

Core Principle

A CUSTOMER PERSONA IS NOT A DEMOGRAPHIC SPREADSHEET — IT IS A LIVING DOCUMENT THAT HELPS YOU WRITE COPY, BUILD PRODUCTS, AND MAKE DECISIONS AS IF YOUR IDEAL CUSTOMER WERE SITTING ACROSS THE TABLE.

---

Phase 1: Research Inputs

Gather the information that informs the persona.

Required Inputs

Input	What to Ask	Default
Product/service	"What do you sell and what problem does it solve?"	No default
Best customers	"Describe your 3 best customers — what do they have in common?"	No default
Who is NOT your customer	"Who buys but is NOT a good fit?"	No default
Purchase trigger	"What event or pain point makes someone buy from you?"	No default
Data sources	"Do you have customer surveys, reviews, or interview data?"	No formal data
Number of personas	"How many distinct customer types do you serve?"	1-2

GATE: Confirm research inputs before building the persona.

---

Phase 2: Build Persona

Create a comprehensive persona profile.

Persona Template

## Customer Persona: [Persona Name]

### Identity
**Name:** [Fictional first name — makes the persona feel real]
**Age range:** [e.g., 28-35]
**Role/Title:** [What they do]
**Income range:** [$X - $Y]
**Location:** [Urban/suburban, region if relevant]
**Education:** [Level]
**Tech comfort:** [Low / Medium / High]

### Demographics Summary
[2-3 sentence portrait of who this person is in their daily life]

### Psychographics
**Values:** [What they care about deeply — 3-5 values]
**Aspirations:** [Where they want to be in 1-3 years]
**Frustrations:** [What keeps them up at night — 3-5 pain points]
**Identity:** [How they see themselves — "I am the kind of person who..."]

### Buying Behavior
**Budget:** [What they can/will spend on solutions like yours]
**Research style:** [How they evaluate options — Google, referrals, social proof, comparison sites]
**Decision speed:** [Impulse / Considered / Lengthy evaluation]
**Objections:** [Top 3 reasons they hesitate to buy]
**Purchase trigger:** [The specific event or pain that pushes them to act]

### Where They Spend Time
**Online:** [Platforms, communities, content types they consume]
**Offline:** [Events, publications, networks]
**Influencers:** [Who they listen to and trust]

### Messaging Preferences
**Tone that resonates:** [Direct / Empathetic / Data-driven / Inspirational]
**Words that attract:** [Specific words and phrases that resonate]
**Words that repel:** [Words and phrases that turn them off]
**Key message:** [One sentence that would stop them scrolling]

### A Day in Their Life
[3-5 sentence narrative of a typical day, highlighting the moment where your product/service becomes relevant]

Anti-Persona (Who They Are NOT)

## Anti-Persona: [Name]

**Why they are a bad fit:**
- [Reason 1]
- [Reason 2]
- [Reason 3]

**Red flags in sales process:**
- [Signal this is the wrong customer]

GATE: Present the persona for review and refinement.

---

Phase 3: Validate

Pressure-test the persona against reality.

Validation Checklist

- [ ] Does this persona match your actual best customers, not aspirational ones?
- [ ] Can you name 3+ real people who fit this persona?
- [ ] Are the pain points based on things customers have actually said?
- [ ] Would this persona realistically afford and value your product?
- [ ] Does the messaging preference match how your best customers found you?

Customer Quotes

Add 3-5 real or realistic quotes that this persona would say:

## Voice of Customer Quotes

"[Quote about their frustration]"
"[Quote about what they want]"
"[Quote about how they describe the problem to friends]"
"[Quote about what success looks like to them]"

---

Phase 4: Apply

Show how to use the persona in daily business decisions.

Persona Application Guide

## How to Use This Persona

**When writing copy:** Read the persona first. Write as if you are talking directly to [Name].
**When creating content:** Ask "Would [Name] stop scrolling for this?"
**When building features:** Ask "Does [Name] need this, or do WE think they need this?"
**When pricing:** Ask "Would [Name] pay this without hesitation?"
**When choosing channels:** Go where [Name] already spends time.

Persona Review Triggers

Update the persona when:

• You get 10+ new customers and notice a pattern shift
• Your product or pricing changes significantly
• Customer feedback consistently contradicts the persona
• You enter a new market or segment

---

Anti-Patterns

• Persona based on wishful thinking — build from real customer data, not who you wish your customer was.
• Too many personas — more than 3 personas paralyzes decision-making. Start with 1, add only when clearly needed.
• Demographics only — knowing someone is "female, 35, MBA" tells you nothing about how to market to them. Psychographics drive behavior.
• Built once, never used — a persona sitting in a Google Doc is waste. Reference it in every marketing and product decision.
• Consensus persona — a persona that tries to describe everyone describes no one. Be specific, even if it feels narrow.

---

Recovery

• User has no customer data: Use the "best 3 customers" exercise. Even anecdotal knowledge is better than guessing.
• User serves very different customer types: Create 2 personas maximum. Prioritize the type that drives the most revenue.
• Persona feels too narrow: That is correct. Narrow personas create focused messaging. You will still attract adjacent customers.
• User disagrees with the psychographics: Ask them to share actual customer quotes or feedback. Let the customer's words define the persona.
• Persona does not match current marketing: The persona reveals the gap. Update marketing to match the persona, not vice versa.