Product-market fit and personas

This post seeks to answer the following questions

• What is product-market fit?

• How do I define a “market”?

• How can personas help?

• What anti-patterns can personas have?

What is product-market fit?

I’ll start with my own definition:

Product-market fit means you are providing a product or service to a group of customers that solves a big enough problem for them to want it.

How do I define a “market”?

What do I mean by “a group of customers” in the statement above? This “market” can be defined by people with the same needs or problems. Consider cyclists who keep getting punctures as an example. I have created a product to repair these punctures. Let’s look at the options to properly define these people i.e. the market:

• Demographic segmentation - e.g. age, gender, income

• Geographic segmentation - e.g. where you are from

• Behavioural segmentation - e.g. time of year, usage, customer loyalty, benefits sought

• Psychographic segmentation - e.g. social class, values, personality, activities and interests

I have seen many companies only consider demographic and geographic segmentation. Imagine my cyclists split like this:

The female countryside cyclist

• Age: 18-40 years old

• Location: countryside

• Gender: female

The male city cyclist

• Age: Over 40 years old

• Location: city

• Gender: male

I hope you can see that this way of segmenting isn’t helpful. The segmentation categories of Age, Location and Gender will not affect the type or frequency of punctures in any meaningful way. In other words, the product will not change based on these. We need segments that differentiate customers based on them having relevant needs and problems. Consider a much better segment:

• Professional cyclist

As a professional, the product must be light, fast to apply and as close to 100% successful on the first attempt. This could mean the difference between winning and losing a race.

How can personas help?

Personas are representations of your customer base. They can help you understand your customers better. Here is an example of a helpful one versus a deliberately bad one!

What anti-patterns can personas have?

Before you read these anti-patterns see if you can criticise the poorly designed persona. It should be obvious, which one this is!

1) Not based on research

Making up personas is the number one anti-pattern. This means you have made a lot of assumptions about your customers or have based them on poor-quality information. If a product team wishes to get together and create personas this is fine, as long as they are validated later. In my example I have defined quantified problem statements, this is good practice as it requires research.

2) Irrelevant information

Talking about irrelevant information in personas, such as the fact that the person has a dog and enjoys walking. This information has no value to our product development. This anti-pattern is common when people want to bring that person to life, but it isn’t helpful.

3) Not using them in product development

You should look for real people who match your personas and then use them to test out ideas and new products. If you have a large product with many features you may have a number of personas. When creating new features these may be targeted more towards specific people. In this case, make it clear in your strategy which persona the feature is aimed at.

4) Not using them in product marketing

Consider where new customers can be reached, for example, the social media channels they are on, so you can target your messaging. You may also segment your current customer base and target marketing at those

5) Not targeting specific personas

We have already discussed what a “market” is. Taking this further, we need to be focussed on who we are building and selling our product to. If we don’t do this we end up with confusing feedback and too many wants and needs. Therefore we should avoid creating too many personas. Imagine having 10 and trying to make them all happy! Create personas for who you are selling to.

Summary

Personas are a powerful tool when used correctly. They can help everyone understand who you are selling to. They should be built into your design and testing processes. Just try to avoid their anti-patterns!

Do you get value from personas? How do you use them?….