"Your site has hordes of visitors every day clamoring to check out the vintage comics you sell," writes Veronica Maria Jarski at MarketingProfs Daily Fix. "But what do you know about your visitors? Are they die-hard fans of specific series? Older folks caught in childhood nostalgia? Rather than make assumptions, create personas of your users."

Personas are profiles that represent your website's typical visitors, and they help you to focus your energies on those who matter the most. Mark O'Brien, president of Newfangled, suggests identifying 15 of your most significant visitors and asking them 10 questions:

1. What were your impressions when you got to the current website?
2. Did you come back to the site? What encouraged you to return?
3. How often do you visit the site and for what purpose?
4. Are you familiar with our area of expertise? Are you just learning about it and our site is a research tool? Are you a competitor?
5. If you do have an understanding of our area of expertise, what other sites have been good resources in this area?
6. What do you dislike about those sites? Do you prefer ours?
7. What do you do on the site? Do you: check press releases, sign up for newsletters, download whitepapers, etc.?
8. How would you describe our site to a peer?
9. "How would you like feature X?" (Use this question to bounce ideas off people about a feature that you are considering adding to the site.)
   
10. What is the No. 1 thing we could do improve our site?

The Po!nt: With their answers, you can develop between three and five personas—quick snapshots of your most valuable customers' wants and needs.

Source: MarketingProfs Daily Fix.

If you're not already a MarketingProfs PRO Member, Upgrade Your Membership and gain instant access to hundreds of exclusive, cutting-edge articles, case studies, templates, tools, online seminars, research, and how-to guides to make your marketing smarter and more effective.

→ end article preview
Read the Full Article