What is a Persona?

Put simply, a persona is a fictional, generalized
representation of your ideal contact. It is the person you are thinking
of as you write your content, design your call-to-actions, run ads, and
develop your filters.

1. Read

well

Imagine a water well in the middle of a village and everyone’s home is surrounding that water source. There are hundreds of different ways that villagers could walk to this well, but this usually doesn’t happen. Generally, a common path forms, the grass gets worn down, rocks are removed, and it eventually is paved.

Likewise, there are countless ways that someone can come to know Christ, as each person is unique. Many people, however, tend to follow similar paths in their journey to Christ.

In marketing, a persona is a fictional, generalized representation of your ideal contact. It is the person you are thinking of as you write your content, design your call-to-actions, run ads, and develop your filters.

The simplest way to get started on your persona is to think through the following three questions. You can do this on your own or brainstorm it with people you work with.

Who is my audience?

  • Are they employed? Families? Leaders?
  • What are their age?
  • What kind of relationships do they have?
  • How educated are they?
  • What is their socioeconomic status?
  • What do they think of Christians?
  • Where do they live? In a city? In a village?

Where is the audience when they use media?

  • Are they at home with family?
  • Is it in the evening after the kids go to bed?
  • Are they riding the metro between work and school?
  • Are they alone? Are they with others?
  • Are they primarily consuming media through their phone, computer, television, or tablet?
  • Why are they using media?

What do you want them to do?

  • Private message you on your social media page?
  • Share your content with others?
  • Debate to increase engagement and an audience?
  • Read articles on your website?
  • Call you?

A pathway that is shown to be be fruitful is “disillusioned with [the dominant religion in your context]”. People who see hypocrisy and emptiness in religion often grow weary of its effects and start searching for truth. Could this be a pathway for you as well? Would you want to find the people in your city who are walking away from empty religion and hoping there is another way?

Another way to look at your persona is to consider your own journey to Christ. Consider how God might use your story and your passion in connecting seekers with Him. Maybe you have experience in fighting and overcoming addictions and could develop a persona around that. Perhaps your target people group are curious about prayer and its power. Your persona could be heads of household who will reach out to you for prayer for their family. Maybe you are brand new in a country and can only meet with English speakers. Your target people could be English speakers who are disillusioned with Islam, Catholicism, etc.

Another way to brainstorm a persona is to consider the journey of local believers in your target UPG. Ask local believers questions likei:

  • How did you first become interested in Jesus?
  • When did you begin your search for truth about Jesus?
  • What were the circumstances of your life during that time? (Were
  • you working? unemployed? a student?)
  • What was your perception about God at the beginning of your
  • journey?
  • As you think back to your search for truth, what were some of your greatest needs?
  • How were those needs meet? What drove you to continue to search?
  • Along your journey, who did you trust? Who/what did you consider to be credible authorities for truth?
  • What were key events (decision points) where you had to make a choice whether to continue on this route or go a different direction?
  • You said you began your search for truth. Can you identify any circumstances or events prior to this that were preparing you to start the journey?
  • When did you first start talking about your journey with someone else? At what point did you start to tell people you were investigating Christianity? Who did you share that with?
  • When was the first time you shared your faith or told someone else you were a Christian?

i: Source: Persona Development: Conversion Pathway

2. Answer these questions

  1. . Brainstorm who you think your target audience will be.
  2. Describe where your target audience is and what they are doing when they are consuming media.
  3. How do you want them to engage with your content?
  4. What do you think are 3-5 pathways your people group is walking to Christ. Highlight your favorite one(s).

3. Resources