Generative AI platforms such as ChatGPT have access to much data to respond to our needs. Marketers can use that info for many purposes, including understanding their audiences and creating buyer personas.
Here are three examples.
Personas for Search Queries
It’s difficult to force ChatGPT to search Google. But it does search Bing.
A handy audience prompt is to instruct ChatGPT to analyze search results (i.e., Bing) and reply with the target persona of each page-1 listing. Here’s my prompt for the query “buy laptops”:
Search Bing with “buy laptops” and provide detailed target personas for each page-1 organic listing. Create a table of each persona and include ideas on better targeting that type of buyer.
Here’s the response, which was helpful:
“Based on the search results for ‘buy laptops,’ we can identify several buyer personas for laptop customers. These personas can be categorized based on their needs, preferences, and purchasing behavior. Here’s a table outlining these personas and strategies to target them effectively.”
I repurposed the table for this article.
I have developed a custom GPT to streamline this type of research — just enter your keyword.
Competitors’ Personas
ChatGPT is an excellent competitor research tool. It can identify their good and missing tactics.
I first searched Google for the top-ranking listing (“Wired” magazine article) from my query.
ChatGPT can access URLs unless they block its crawler, which would require pasting the entire text into the prompt. Here’s my prompt.
This URL is from my organic search competitor: [enter URL]. Analyze the page and tell me the targeted buyer personas. Create a table listing each persona and the page elements or wording that informed your conclusions.
Here’s ChatGPT’s response:
“Based on the provided text, it’s possible to identify several buyer personas that the article on ‘How to Buy the Right Laptop for You’ targets. I’ll outline these personas in a table, along with the page elements or wording that suggest these are the target audiences.”
Again, I repurposed the table for this article.
Evidently this article is targeting multiple audiences, something to keep in mind when I’m composing my own. I could repeat this exercise for other top-ranking URLs for my keyword.
Reddit Personas
ChatGPT cannot access Reddit. But I still prompt an analysis of Reddit content by downloading a PDF page from that site — “Print” > “Save as PDF” in your browser — and uploading it to ChatGPT. Thus a prompt including a Reddit thread about your company or a competitor is possible.
For a test, I uploaded a PDF of a Reddit thread titled “I’m looking to buy a laptop and I’m confused.” Here’s my prompt:
Analyze the Reddit discussion in the attached PDF and extract user personas from it. Create a table listing the personas, likely interests, and how to best approach and engage them.
And here’s the response:
“Based on the excerpt from the ‘I’m looking to buy a laptop and I’m confused’ discussion, we can analyze and extract user personas for members likely to be active in such a community. This analysis focuses on the types of users who are engaged in conversations about laptop choices, particularly those considering factors like processor type, battery performance, and cost.”
Here’s the repurposed table:
Next Prompts
Once ChatGPT identifies personas and content ideas, prompt it to:
- Expand or narrow a keyword list to target each persona better.
- Analyze content and suggest tactics for targeting each persona.
