Audience Personas
A persona distills qualitative and quantitative research into a memorable archetype: a named character with a role, goals, context, vocabulary, and the specific questions they bring to your content. The purpose is alignment, when a team disagrees about tone, depth, or what counts as useful, a well-researched persona resolves the argument. Without research as input, personas are just decorative fiction.
Named composite profiles of the readers you are actually writing for.
Name → Goal → Context → Questions they ask
When to use this
- Before building a content calendar, to ensure topics are chosen for a real audience (or as real as possible!) rather than internal preference.
- When teams argue about tone, terminology, or whether a piece resonates with them or not. (If they aren't the target audience, why should it?)
- As input to a journey map, a messaging hierarchy, or a voice and tone guide.