Are you always aiming for a single persona? Or are there situations where two or more make more sense?

Question

James Winter · Accepted Answer

In my experience, it's rare that a single persona would be particularly valuable. For example, in my current role, there are at least 3-4 main personas who all have very different motivations, roles, etc...

One of the most basic examples of why you'll probably need at least two personas, at least if you're selling a B2B product, is that it's very rare that you are every selling to just one person. In most B2B scenarios, there are at least two people involved in the purchasing decision process. As you go up market and begin selling to enterprise, this number can skyrocket to 7-8 people.

For example with my product, there are almost always at least two people involved: the economic buyer, and the user. It's rare that someone purchases our product (annual contract, >$20k ACV) without the input of their boss.

It's important for our sales reps and the rest of the organization to understand that even if there is only one point of contact at the company, that social media manager (our main persona) is often submitting everything to their boss for their review.

As you go up-market, there is at least two steps to making the sale: 1) selling to your user, and 2) selling to the rest of the people they need to convince.

Daniel Palay · Answer

Definitely multiple persons, the number of which really depend on:

1. Number of stakeholders involved in the purchase decision (usually at least two or three; user, champion, buyer - more if it's "purchase by committee").

2. Number of distinct customer segments you are going after (note: I use a somewhat nontraditional definition of "segment").

3. Number of non-customer stakeholders (like strategic partners) also must buy in.

While there will likely be some significant overlap, the reason to consider so many different personas is the diversity of incentives each stakeholder will respond to. It's not just about customer-level value proposition, because what's in the best interest of each individual is surely to conflict with that on some level. The real challenge (fun) begins when it's time to reconcile all of them with the customer-level value prop, and with each other.

Greg Hollander · Answer

More than one persona can definitely make sense.  It just depends on the business.  Ideally you want to have one persona per “target audience”.  The balance is having enough to create coverage across the segment(s) that are strategically valuable to the business, and not too many that they become information overload and are not actionable.

Sherrie Nguyen (she/her) · Answer

Always aim for as many personas as you encounter, but see above for my explanation on identifying a target segment and then choosing the personas you want to go after. It's important to stay focused on key decision makers, budget holders, and influencers. Part of this may be trial and error with continuous learning as you enter sales cycles and learn more.