Table of Contents
- Who Are You Marketing To?
- What is a Customer Persona?
- Why Do You Need a Customer Persona?
- How Does a Customer Persona Help in Specific Activities?
- How to Build a Customer Persona the Right Way?
- In Summary, To Do It Right, You Must Understand Right
Who Are You Marketing To?
You write posts every week, run ads daily, and continuously optimize landing pages. But after all that, do you truly know who you are marketing to?
Not just in terms of “customers aged 25–35, living in cities, who like shopping online.” It’s more specific: What problems are they facing? What do they think when they see your ad? What makes them trust your ad or scroll past it?
If you can’t answer these questions, it’s likely that everything you’re doing is based on gut feelings or blind guesses.
This is precisely why Customer Persona exists.
It helps you clearly visualize: who you are serving, what they need, what they want to hear, and how to connect with them effectively.
Without a customer persona, your campaigns risk being vague, your messages miss the mark, and your ads waste money without results. But with a persona, everything becomes clearer - not because you’re doing more, but because you’re doing it right.
So, what is a Customer Persona? And why is it something you shouldn’t overlook in any marketing strategy?
What is a Customer Persona?
A Customer Persona is a detailed sketch of an ideal customer type you aim to target. It goes beyond age, gender, or occupation, diving deep into behaviors, motivations, goals, habits, and even the pain points they face.
Simply put, it’s an “imaginary yet realistic” character built from real customer data. They have a name, a life context, a way of thinking, and distinct purchasing behaviors.
Unlike a “target audience,” which describes a group in broad terms, a persona is so specific that you can imagine having a direct conversation with this person. This makes every marketing decision - from choosing messages and tone to selecting channels - easier and more consistent.
For example, instead of saying “women aged 25–35, living in Ho Chi Minh City, interested in health,” a customer persona might be:
“Ms. Trang, 32 years old, an office worker in Ho Chi Minh City. She often stays up late working, is stressed, and is looking for a healthy weight-loss solution without extreme dieting. She typically searches for information on YouTube and reads blogs in the evening.”
This level of specificity allows you to create content, run ads, or design products that truly align with the person you’re serving.
And that’s the difference between guessing and truly understanding.
Why Do You Need a Customer Persona?
If you don’t know exactly who you’re marketing to, you’ll likely fall into one of two common traps: speaking too broadly to appeal to everyone, or speaking too specifically but to the wrong audience. Both lead to the same outcome: no one truly cares.
Marketing doesn’t start with the product - it starts with people. If you don’t deeply understand the people you’re trying to reach, all your efforts in content, ads, and product development are just guesswork and lack meaning.
A Customer Persona eliminates that ambiguity.
Addressing What Customers Truly Care About
When you know what’s troubling your customers, what goals they’re pursuing, and the deeper reasons they hesitate to make a purchase, you’ll know what to write, what to say, and how to persuade them.
Imagine you’re selling a whitening cream. Naturally, customers’ primary concern is whether the cream actually whitens skin.
But that’s not their only concern - they care about other issues too.
For instance, you might have previously written: “effective skin whitening cream in just 3 days.”
But after developing a customer persona, you realize they’re worried about skin irritation or unnatural whitening (because your persona has sensitive skin and doesn’t want chemical-based whitening).
Now, you might use a message like: “gradually brightens skin, safe for sensitive skin - visible results after 2 weeks of consistent use.”
A small change, but one rooted in deep understanding. And that understanding only comes from having a clear picture of who you’re serving.
Focusing Resources on the Right Things
Without a persona, you’ll try everything in a “let’s see what works” approach: testing various content types, formats, and ad sets… and burning through a lot of money.
But with a clear customer persona, you can eliminate much of what’s unnecessary.
For example, if your persona is “someone who watches tutorial videos on YouTube before deciding to buy,” you’ll prioritize video reviews over lengthy Facebook posts. If they’re someone who reads others’ comments, you’ll invest in testimonials rather than one-sided claims.
You don’t need to do more. You just need to do it right.
Ensuring Consistency Across Content and Experience
Have you ever seen this situation: content written in one style, ads saying something else, and the landing page using a completely different tone? That happens when the customer persona isn’t clear, so you end up writing differently each time.
With a clear customer persona, everything you do has a common foundation, creating consistency that customers can feel.
From Facebook ads to blog posts to TikTok videos, everything speaks with the same voice, uses the same approach, and - most importantly - addresses the same issue that matters to your customers.
Instead of each platform having its own style, a persona ensures a consistent experience. Customers feel “sameness” at every touchpoint, which significantly boosts trust.
Beyond that, it helps you make decisions faster. When torn between two writing directions, two content topics, or two headline options, you don’t need to rely on gut feelings or majority opinions. Just return to your persona and ask: how would this person respond?
When creating content, you can’t just guess how customers will react - that’s not enough. You need to thoroughly research their behaviors, put yourself in their shoes, and combine that with your own experience to choose the best direction for your content.
How Does a Customer Persona Help in Specific Activities?
A Customer Persona isn’t just something to hang on the wall for show. It’s a practical tool that directly impacts every part of your daily marketing activities.
For content, it tells you what to write, what tone to use, and which topics are truly worth pursuing. For ads, it helps you select the right insights, images, and messages that hit real pain points instead of chasing meaningless trends.
When developing products, a persona helps you prioritize core needs. In sales, it shortens the persuasion process because you already know what customers need to hear and what concerns to address.
No matter your role, a clear persona always helps you do less while achieving greater effectiveness.
How to Build a Customer Persona the Right Way?
A Customer Persona isn’t something you whip up in 5 minutes. It needs to be built on real data, careful observation, and a balance between intuition and reality.
Start by Observing Real Customers
You can’t create a persona from imagination - you must observe carefully. Look at your existing customers: Who buys frequently? Who engages with your content?
From there, you’ll notice commonalities in their behaviors, motivations, and decision-making processes. For example: Many people message you in the evening → they might be busy office workers. Or those who comment asking about product ingredients → they’re likely meticulous and skeptical of ads.
Use Available Data
If you have registration forms, Google Analytics data, CRM data, or fan page messages, these are all valuable sources of information.
Find out:
Where they come from (traffic sources)
Which posts they read, where they linger
What they buy first, and how long after their first visit
The language they use when asking questions (formal, casual, technical…)
These details will help you build a clear picture instead of a vague sketch.
Listen Directly - Don’t Guess
Interviewing past customers or asking a few post-purchase questions can reveal insights you didn’t expect.
You might ask:
What made you decide to buy?
What concerns did you have initially?
Before using this product, did you try anything else?
However, interviewing isn’t as easy as it sounds. Your questions need depth, must elicit insights, and shouldn’t lead customers to answer in a way that suits you.
Additionally, from my perspective, online survey forms are often ineffective. Why? Simply because few people have the time to fill out lengthy surveys, and if they do, they’re unlikely to take them seriously.
Some brands offer incentives like discount vouchers for completing surveys, but this only increases the number of responses without guaranteeing sincerity.
If possible, I recommend having direct, relaxed conversations with customers, sharing as if you were friends. This will yield far more value than a dry online survey form.
Don’t Aim for Flashy - Aim for Accurate
An effective persona doesn’t need to be fancy with avatars, fake names, or colorful infographics.
(Unless you’re in university… I don’t know, professors seem to love flashy stuff, so add avatars and names if it suits their taste.)
In practice, you don’t need to make it overly elaborate - as long as you can clearly visualize the person in your mind, that’s enough.
You can start simply with:
A fake name + age + occupation
What a typical day looks like for them
The problem they’re facing related to your product/service
Their goals, desires, and fears when seeking a solution
Where they typically find information? Who do they trust?
Answer these clearly, and you’ll have a highly practical and valuable sketch.
Quality Over Quantity - Don’t Overdo It
A common mistake is trying to create too many personas for every small segment, leading to confusion and impracticality.
In reality, 1–2 clear personas that accurately reflect your main customer groups are enough.
Focus on the customer group with the highest value, the most frequent purchases, or the greatest growth potential as your priority persona.
A Customer Persona evolves over time. You can update and refine it as you gather more data. But the key is to start, as soon as possible - the more you understand your customers, the less you’ll be groping in the dark.
In Summary, To Do It Right, You Must Understand Right
A Customer Persona isn’t just for show or to decorate your planning slides. It exists to give your marketing direction. From writing content to running ads to developing products, everything revolves around a specific type of person, with distinct problems and decision-making processes.
The biggest difference between those who excel and those who work hard but see no results lies here: one understands exactly who they’re serving, while the other operates on instinct.
If you haven’t built a customer persona yet, now is the perfect time to start. No need for complex templates or flashy designs. All you need is a piece of paper, a pen, and the suggestions shared above.
Start now - don’t delay!