Optimizing Your Customer Interview Strategy for Effective Persona Building

Building customer personas is a crucial step in understanding your target audience and tailoring your marketing and product strategies to meet their needs effectively. The number of interviews you conduct plays a significant role in the depth and accuracy of your personas. Generally, a range of 5 to 15 interviews is sufficient to capture a comprehensive understanding of your customer base. Let's delve deeper into the process and strategies to optimize your interview strategy.

Understanding the Ideal Interview Range

According to industry experts, conducting between 5 to 15 interviews is a recommended range for building robust customer personas. This range allows for both depth and efficiency. Here are the key reasons why this is the optimal range:

Ensuring a Diverse Set of Participants

To gather a wide range of perspectives, it's essential to include a diverse group of participants. This can include current customers, potential customers, and even those who have chosen not to purchase your product or service. This diversity helps you understand various viewpoints and experiences, enriching your customer personas.

Identifying Key Segments

If your target market has distinct segments (e.g., age groups, geographic locations, or usage patterns), conducting interviews within each segment ensures comprehensive coverage. This approach helps you understand the unique needs and preferences of different subgroups within your audience.

Reaching Saturation Point

After around 10 interviews, you will typically start to notice recurring themes and patterns. This is often referred to as reaching the saturation point. At this point, the additional interviews may not provide significant new insights, making further interviews less productive.

Additional Research Methods

While customer interviews are an essential part of building personas, supplementing them with other research methods can further refine your personas. Consider using surveys and gathering data from analytics to gain a more comprehensive understanding of your target audience. This multi-faceted approach ensures you capture a broader range of information.

An Iterative Process

Building customer personas is not a one-time task but an iterative process. As you gather more data and insights over time, refine and adjust your personas accordingly. This continuous improvement ensures that your personas remain relevant and effective.

Expert Recommendations

For a more structured approach, Adele Revella, in her book "Buyer Personas," suggests conducting 8-10 customer interviews. Her goal is to determine the 5 rings of buying insight, which are:

The 5 Rings of Buying Insight

Priority Initiative: Understanding the most compelling reason buyers decide to invest in a solution similar to what your organization offers and why others are content with the status quo. Success Factors: Describing the operational or personal results buyers expect from purchasing a solution like yours. Perceived Barriers: The "bad news" insight that highlights what prevents buyers from considering your solution and why some believe their competitors have a better approach. Buyer’s Journey: Revealing the behind-the-scenes story of the work buyers do to evaluate options, eliminate contenders, and settle on their final choice. Decision Criteria: Learning about the specific attributes of your product, service, or solution that buyers evaluate as they compare alternative approaches.

It's important to conduct these interviews for high consideration purchases and expensive options. This ensures you capture the most relevant and detailed insights.

Conclusion

Building customer personas is a critical task that requires both depth and efficiency. Conducting a manageable number of interviews (typically between 5 to 15) allows you to capture a comprehensive understanding of your target audience. By integrating diverse participants, identifying key segments, reaching saturation, and supplementing with additional research methods, you can create robust and effective customer personas. As you continue to gather data and insights over time, refine and adjust your personas to ensure they remain relevant and actionable.