Persona based personalization for online stores

Persona Interviews That Produce Personas, Not Demographics

Twelve interviews with real buyers will tell you more than a thousand survey responses. The trick is asking about their job, not their age.

A persona comes from interviews with real buyers, about twelve per persona, asking how their work is measured and what almost stopped them buying. Griffin and Hauser found 20 to 30 interviews uncover 90 to 95 percent of customer needs, and demographics never appear in that list.

Twelve interviews, and why that number

The number is not a rule, it is a saturation point. Somewhere around a dozen interviews per persona, the answers start repeating. The same frustrations, the same workarounds, the same three goals. Interview three people and you have anecdotes. Interview twelve and you have a pattern, and the pattern is what the persona is.

Griffin and Hauser's research puts the full number at 20 to 30 interviews to uncover 90 to 95 percent of customer needs. The practical floor is lower: three to eight interviews, 15 to 30 minutes each, will give you a working persona if the interviewees are real buyers and the questions are right. The number matters less than the source. Twelve real buyers beat a hundred survey responses from people who never bought.

The question bank that works

The questions that produce personas are about the buyer's job, not the buyer's identity. What does a normal day look like? How is your performance measured? What are your top three goals this quarter? What is the most frustrating part of the job? What have you tried that did not work? Who else was involved in the decision? What almost stopped you buying?

Notice what is not in the list. Nobody asks age, income, or job title for its own sake. Those are demographics, and demographics do not predict behavior. A 28-year-old founder and a 55-year-old procurement lead can have the same buying process, and two 40-year-old managers can have completely different ones. The persona is the job, not the person.

What to do with the answers

After the interviews, the work is synthesis, not transcription. Group the answers by the problem they describe, not by the person who said them. The goals cluster into two or three groups. The frustrations cluster into the same ones. The buying blockers cluster into one or two. Those clusters are the personas, and each one gets a name, a job to be done, and a set of triggers.

Then test them. Show the persona to a salesperson and ask if it matches the buyers they talk to. Show it to a customer and ask if it sounds like them. A persona that survives contact with the people it describes is a working document. A persona that nobody recognizes is a fiction, and it will produce fiction in every campaign built on it.

The demographic trap

The most common persona failure is a document that reads like a dating profile: 35 to 44, urban, college-educated, reads industry blogs. None of that tells you what to say to them, what to offer them, or when to stop pitching. Demographics are easy to collect, which is why they fill so many persona documents, and they are nearly useless for the job the persona is supposed to do.

The fix is to write the persona as a job description, not a biography. What is this person trying to get done, what is in their way, and what would make them choose you? If the document cannot answer those three questions, it is not a persona, it is a census form.

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Frequently asked questions

How many interviews do I need for a persona?

About twelve per persona is where answers start repeating and a pattern emerges. Griffin and Hauser found 20 to 30 interviews uncover 90 to 95 percent of customer needs, but three to eight interviews of 15 to 30 minutes each gives you a working persona if the interviewees are real buyers.

How long should a persona interview be?

Fifteen to thirty minutes is enough, if the questions are right. Longer interviews drift into small talk. The goal is a focused conversation about the buyer's job, their goals, and what almost stopped them buying.

What questions should I ask in a buyer persona interview?

Ask about the job: what does a normal day look like, how is performance measured, what are the top three goals, what is the most frustrating part, what have you tried that did not work, and what almost stopped you buying.

How are personas different from demographics?

Demographics describe who someone is: age, title, location. Personas describe what someone is trying to get done, what is in their way, and what would make them choose you. Two people with the same demographics can have completely different buying processes.