Marketing to "everyone" is marketing to no one
Ask a new business owner who their customer is and you'll hear "anyone who wants good food" or "everybody needs fitness." That answer guarantees generic messaging, wasted ad spend, and content nobody feels was written for them.
Segmentation is the discipline of splitting a market into groups that buy for different reasons. You can segment by:
- Demographics — age, income, location (Lekki vs Surulere is a real pricing difference).
- Behaviour — first-time buyers vs regulars, weekday lunch orders vs weekend parties.
- Needs and motivations — the office worker who wants lunch in 20 minutes vs the mum planning a birthday.
From segment to persona
A buyer persona is a fictional-but-evidence-based portrait of one person inside a segment. A useful persona answers:
- Who are they? (name, age, job, city — make them concrete: "Chiamaka, 29, product designer in Yaba")
- What are they trying to achieve? (the job your product does for them)
- What frustrates them about current options?
- Where do they spend time online? (Instagram? LinkedIn? WhatsApp groups? Nairaland?)
- What words do they use to describe the problem? (steal their exact language for your copy)
Research, not guesswork
The difference between a real persona and a decorative one is evidence. Cheap sources you can mine this week:
- Reviews — read Google Maps and Jumia reviews of competitors. Complaints are unmet needs written down for free.
- Forums and comments — Nairaland threads, Twitter/X replies, Facebook group posts. Note recurring phrases.
- Short interviews — five 10-minute chats with real or potential customers beat any brainstorm. Ask "walk me through the last time you bought X" and shut up.
Weak persona: "Women aged 18–45 who like fashion." Strong persona: "Ada, 26, NYSC just finished, first salary job in Abuja. Wants to look professional without spending ₦50k on one outfit. Follows thrift pages on Instagram, buys via DM, biggest fear is paying and getting a different item."
The strong version tells you what to post, what objection to answer, and what channel to use. The weak one tells you nothing.
You can use ChatGPT or Claude to draft persona questions or summarise interview notes — but the raw material must come from real people, and you must edit the output until it sounds like your customer, not a template.
Try it now
Find one competitor to a business you know. Read ten of their reviews. Write down three exact phrases customers used — good or bad. Those phrases are copy gold; drop them into your swipe file.