3 AI Techniques to Gain Deep User Insights.
Say goodbye to generic personas and quickly improve your user knowledge in record time.
When done right, personas can be a powerful tool for creating products that resonate with users and deploying marketing strategies that actually drive business growth.
However, far too often, product professionals don't have time to go through a weeks-long customer interview process to get a proper understanding of their personas. This results in personas that are created based on general assumptions, outdated information, or limited data, resulting in generic, one-dimensional representations that fail to capture the true essence of your target audience.
Now, before you start thinking AI will replace the need for proper customer interviews, let me be crystal clear:
✨ IT WON'T. ✨
Talking to customers regularly will always remain a key factor in the success of your product. Period.
But what if you could actually significantly enhance your understanding of your personas in only a few minutes?
AI offers incredible opportunities to uncover patterns, broaden your mind, and identify new product hypotheses to assess.
If you use it the right way.
In this edition of the Product Courier, we'll explore three ways AI can take your persona understanding to the next level:
✅ Get an overview and quickly prioritize audiences
✅ Simulate one-on-one conversations with your persona
✅ Create a fictional focus group and get different perspectives.
#1. If you’re getting started with personas: Get an overview and prioritize your targets.
Your product may have many different target audiences, but not all of them have the same importance. Prioritizing these audiences is key to prioritizing the development of features and properly allocating your actions and budget across marketing channels.
By using this prompt, you will be able to quickly get an overview of your different targets and their business potential. This will enable you to make informed decisions about product development and marketing strategies, ensuring that your efforts are focused on the most valuable audiences.Prompt:
You are an experienced Product Marketing Manager working in the [industry name] industry, possessing extensive knowledge of the market and its users. Your task is to prioritize and create personas for a [Product Name, category or subcategory]. This product [short description of the product and the problem it solves].
Develop a prioritized list of the target audience for this product, assessing each by business potential on a scale from 1 to 10. Organize your assessments in a structured table format, clearly outlining your insights and the rationale for prioritizing each target group. Be extremely specific in your rationale and avoid generic remarks.
Here’s an output example for a Managed Observability product.
And here’s a B2C product example for a Fitness tracker.
#2. Simulate a 1:1 conversation with your persona.
Another way of crafting better personas is to have a deep, one-on-one conversation with your persona. For this example, I recommend starting a brand new ChatGPT thread and setting up the frame of the conversation with this prompt.
Prompt:
I'm a Product Marketing Manager working for a [Industry] company, and I'm trying to better understand the frustrations and needs of [Persona] regarding [Product-related topic].
To do so, I want you to act as a [Precise Persona Description]. Remember these instructions and stick to this role during this whole thread.
Just say "ok".
Every word in your persona description and questions matters, so take the time to refine and iterate on them until you feel confident that they truly represent your audience and the information you seek.
Your thread is now ready. ✨
Now, it's time to start interviewing your persona. The key to gaining valuable insights lies in the specificity of your questions. Asking targeted, specific questions will lead to more insightful and actionable answers.
As a best practice, only ask one question at a time. Start with general and broad open questions and progressively narrow down the interview to specific talking points. AI tends to auto-refer to previous results, so feel free to start this process again in a new thread to always keep "fresh" results.
Here are a few generic questions you could ask your persona to start the conversation:
In what context do you find yourself using [product] ?
What are your frustrations regarding [product] ?
What changes or additional features would make our [product] more valuable to you?
Here's an example from a ChatGPT simulated interview between a PMM and a DevOps Engineer regarding Observability and cloud monitoring.
#3. Organize a fictional focus group to get different points of views.
Another way to gain a rich perspective on your personas is to organize a fictional focus group and let them talk. Using focus groups helps in getting different points of view on a specific topic.
Prompt:
Assume the role of an expert market researcher with a knack for eliciting detailed and actionable feedback. You're not only familiar with the product/service but also with the subtle dynamics of the target demographic's needs and preferences.
Conduct a focused focus group to gather in-depth insights on a [specific product/service] for [users role] in [company types: SMBs, enterprise]. The objective is to understand how the product/service fits into the daily lives of the target demographic, identifying both strengths and areas for improvement. The discussion will cover:
Emotional Connection: The emotional reasons behind choosing and using the product/service.
Contextual Use: How and why the product/service is used in specific situations.
Unmet Needs: Areas where the product/service could be improved or does not currently meet user expectations.
Personalization and Customization: Preferences for making the product/service more tailored to individual needs.
Behavioral Change: The impact of the product/service on users' habits and routines.
To do so, simulate conversations between at least 5 participants. These participants all belong to the target and offers different points of view and insights. Describe their profiles in the intro of the prompt. Make sure each participants point of view is written for each section above.
Encourage honest and open dialogue, prompting participants to share personal stories and experiences that highlight the product/service's role in their lives. This approach aims to move beyond generic feedback, uncovering rich, actionable insights that can significantly influence product development and positioning strategies.
Expected outcomes are detailed participant insights that reveal deep-seated needs, preferences, and emotional connections with the product/service. List concisely a few product opportunities at the end of your output.
Here’s an extract from a focus group about Observability usage.
✨ In a nutshell: Use AI to broaden your views on your personas ✨
It's easy to get stuck in our own assumptions about customers. AI can help break those mental barriers by generating diverse persona traits, backgrounds, and pain points you might not have considered. It's a powerful tool, if you use it to enrich your discovery process instead of trying to replace it.
Using these prompts, you are now able to:
✅ Get an overview and quickly prioritize audiences
✅ Simulate one-on-one conversations with your persona
✅ Create a fictional focus group and get different perspectives
AI offers many opportunities to improve your productivity. We've created a free library of prompts by use case for Product Managers and Product Marketing Managers. You should definitely have a look!
And remember:
Always talk to your customers. ❤️
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Check out our previous editions.
You've got such cool content!! Love the way you break everything down, and how actionable it is :)