Customer personas allow us to discuss our business from the point of view of the people that make our business, our customers. Personas allow us to do this by forcing us to empathise with customers and thereby giving us actionable insights based on our customer's needs and drivers.
Millennials, people born from 1980 to 2000 are increasingly, some would argue obsessively, getting attention from the press, research companies and marketers. Based on the increasing interest to capture the attention of millennials, the millennial personas were created. The generic millennial customer personas act as a starting point that you can refine based on your own customer's specific needs and attributes.
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Persona one - older millennial
Forrester breaks Millennials up into two distinct groups - younger (18 to 24) and older (25 to 34). The groups have major differences across employment, life-stage and income. In line with Forrester's findings, I'll be producing a generic persona for each group.
Refining the personas
The generic personas are a starting point. For the personas to be useful for a business they need to be refined based on your customer's particular quirks and needs. To identify these you'll need to conduct your own research. I'm currently writing a series on persona and customer journey map research methodologies so please sign up to the site's email in order to be notified when the articles come out.
When creating personas for a client, I'll usually identify three to five distinct personas that describe the majority of a businesses' customers.
Using the personas
Personas help us prioritise what our business focusses on and evaluate what we're doing by evaluating it from the point of view of the customer. To do so we ask:
What goal is the persona trying to achieve?
How do they currently achieve their goal?
- What's their current behaviour (motivation x trigger x ability)?
- What product / service do they hire to achieve their goal?
- What pains / gains are associated with their current product / service?
What context/s are they in?
Persona one research
90% of employees want to use their skills for good
60% cited their company’s sense of purpose as part of the reason they chose their job
Mashable's post hipster Young Urban Creatives (Yuccies)
43% of every food dollar is spent in restaurants
66% would like to start their own business
UK millennials prefer informational brand content over cash savings
55% agree that a healthy mind leads to a healthy body
“Healthy” is a daily commitment to eating right and exercising
86% see diverse news opinions through social - "news and information are woven into an often continuous but mindful way that Millennials connect to the world generally, which mixes news with social connection, problem solving, social action, and entertainment"
When it comes to homes, cars and luxury goods it's about access not ownership
Image credit
The CC images used for the personas can be found below.
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