We can no longer market to the anonymous masses. They’re not anonymous and they’re not masses.
—Seth Godin
Your customers are people—not automatons or numbers on an analytics dashboard. But your brand must resonate with more than just your customers—employees, partners, media, influencers, investors, your local community might also influence your success—they’re all people too. The goal of this exercise is to step into the shoes of those that are important to your brand and empathize with their experiences so that we can create a brand that attracts them and speaks to them. We’ll do this by creating our very own brand personas.
A brand persona isn’t an exact portrait of a single person. It’s a representation of the traits, behaviors, and motivations your typical audiences share. Think of it as a tool to help you understand what attracts people to you, what they need from you, and how you can serve them better or even delight them. Brand personas (profiles, or avatars) help us craft strategies and messaging that are more likely to resonate with our actual audience.
MailChimp created bold, vibrant persona posters and proudly displayed them in MailChimp HQ for everyone in the company to see and talk about.
There are dozens of brand persona design frameworks out there, but many can feel confusing or overly complex. What’s the difference between pains, needs, and goals? That’s why I’ve developed a simpler, two-step process for brand persona design that relies on storytelling. In your brand story your audience is the hero and you are their champion.
First, we’ll make a list of all of the categories of people our brand should ideally resonate with—our stakeholders—then prioritize them.
Second, we’ll brainstorm story elements and then prioritize them to define the main narrative for each of our our main stakeholders.
If you already have customer profiles or data on your audience, be sure to have them handy—they can be invaluable during this exercise.
In describing the exercise, I may ask you to brainstorm single words or simple sentences. While it’s helpful to follow these directions, don’t let it get in the way of capturing ideas.
The more realistic your brand personas are, the more useful they are. This exercise might require some level of speculation, especially if you’re just starting out. Consider going through the “better than this” exercise first and then create your brand personas based on what you learned from analyzing your competitors.
1. Casting
In step one of this exercise you’ll list all your brand’s stakeholders and prioritize them. Again, your customers are not the only one who can influence your company’s success. Your team and employees, your partners, media, influencers, communities, investors all can play an important role in your company’s success.
Additionally, each of these broad categories can be further divided into segments if it makes sense for your brand. If you ask yourself who your customers are, for example, you might realize that they might be organized into different groups, each interacting with your brand for different reasons.
My clients and friends at Apex Cool Labs have patented a cutting edge body thermoregulation device of their own design. Professional athletes and coaches love the product because it considerably reduces recovery time while enhancing athletic performance. Firefighters, on the other hand, use it to reduce heat stress and avoid dangerous job-related health hazards like heat stroke, all while increasing work capacity. Athletes, coaches, and firefighters are the main Apex Cool Labs’ customer segments. Additionally, the company has been (successfully) raising money to launch a new version of the product and scale their production capacity so Investors have been an important consideration in our brand building efforts too.
Don’t worry too much about how broad or specific your stakeholder categories are during the brainstorming phase. Capture every idea—trust the process. Through discussion and prioritization, the most relevant stakeholders will emerge naturally.
Here’s how to do it:
Everyone writes down their own list of stakeholders.
One by one, everyone reads their list aloud and the facilitator writes each stakeholder on the whiteboard.
The group gets a couple of minutes to think, then one by one, everyone votes on what they think are the two most important stakeholders. The facilitator marks the votes on the whiteboard.
The final decision maker (DM) can now accept the results or take five minutes to discuss the prioritized list with the group. Keep the time with a timer.
The DM writes the final list of the top three stakeholders.
And now that you’ve identified your heroes, you’re ready to move to the next phase of this exercise.
2. Storyboarding
In your brand story your top three stakeholders are the hero and you are their champion. Our brand personas will tell the story of each of our heroes. Each story is made of six elements: hero, mission, obstacle, place, solution, and transformation.
Hero
Who’s the hero in your story?
It’s one of your prioritized stakeholders, of course. Now you’ll brainstorm any relevant demographic that may help further define their character. It’s only natural that some traits are more relevant than others for your brand. No need to add fluff to your brand persona. However, even traits that seem less critical at first glance can provide unexpected insights into your hero’s needs and inclinations. Here’s a list to get you started:
Age
Gender
Nationality
Location
Marital status
Education
Occupation
Income
Sports
Hobbies
Mission
What are they practically trying to accomplish?
Your hero comes to you because there’s something you can help with that they need to accomplish—maybe more than one thing. It could be scheduling meetings across different timezones, tracking fitness progress, managing a budget, or keeping the lawn tidy. The mission must be practical and relevant to your business.
Obstacle
What’s preventing your hero from accomplishing their mission according to their values, or at all?
Obstacles can be internal—when they’re a product of the hero’s personal limitations, mindset, or resources—or external—when they’re outside of their control.
Solution
Now that you know what your hero wants and what they value, consider what you can offer them to help them accomplish their mission. Beyond products or services, also consider how you create (or could create) an ecosystem or comminity that supports your hero toward their goals. If it’s helpful, think through these categories:
Products: Physical or digital, designed to solve specific needs.
Services: Assistance, support, and customization tailored to the hero’s mission.
Facilities: Physical spaces that support the hero activities, such as stores, offices, or event venues.
Features: They enhance the user experience or effectiveness of your products, services, and facilities.
Resources: Content, guides, and tools that educate or empower the hero.
Atmosphere: The environment or experience that shapes how the hero feel when engaging with your brand.
Pricing and Payment Models: Flexible pricing structures or payment options that make solutions more accessible for the hero.
Place
Where will you meet your hero?
Where does your hero naturally spend their time? Think about the spaces—both physical and digital—where they seek information, entertainment, and connection. Identifying these ‘places’ helps you discover where to engage them most effectively and understand the visual, cultural, and brand influences shaping their world. Here’s a list to get your started:
Books, websites, blogs, magazines, music, TV shows, podcasts
Influencers (People or other brands they follow and trust)
Conferences, industry gatherings and exhibitions, concerts, webinars, or any other live or virtual events they attend.
Transformation
What’s the ‘happily ever after’?
Your hero’s transformation is the ideal future state they reach with your help—it might be newfound confidence, greater efficiency, more freedom, or a life-changing breakthrough. The transformation is the broader impact your brand has on your hero’s life.
Here’s how to run the second part of the exercise:
Everyone writes down their own list for the hero’s demographics.
Going around the room, everyone reads their list aloud while the facilitator writes on the whiteboard.
Repeat for each story element. Brainstorm and share for mission, obstacles, place, solution, and transformation, in order.
The group gets a couple of minutes to think, then one by one, everyone votes for the two most important insights per story element. The facilitator marks the votes on the whiteboard. Repeat prioritization for all elements. No extra thinking time between rounds—just vote and move on.
The DM can accept the results or take five minutes to discuss the story elements with the group. Keep the time with a timer.
The DM picks up to three final insights per story element.
Follow the same process for all three cast heroes.
I limited the number of heroes to take through the second stage of the exercise to three so that you can complete it in a reasonable time. In my experience, three personas are usually enough to cover the key perspectives for most small businesses, but every brand is different and you might have more or fewer heroes to help.
Now, your brand personas are the kind of tool you need to keep sharp. Regularly update them with insights you collect from real-world interactions. And don’t keep them a secret. Share them widely within your organization—your team, employees, and any creative, marketing, or sales contractors should know your heroes and regularly refer to them so they can keep shaping your brand in the right direction.