Personas are critical to effective target marketing. A persona is a fictitious character created to represent each of your patient categories. It works to have two or three personas for each service you offer, with one being your primary persona and the others secondary personas. Each has a name, a brief profile and a picture that reminds you who you’re speaking to.

Identifying your patient groups with a persona – giving them a name, gender, occupation, income level, challenges and preferences – will help you to define the best ways to reach the target group and what information to target them with.

To create your patient personas, follow these steps: 3 Define patient profiles. This may be specific to each of the services you offer or the conditions you treat and typically contain several subgroups. An example is the diabetic community, divided into various age and gender groups, plus family members and caregivers.

– Identify the demographics. Start with the name, age, marital status, income level and health status of the main persona you want to target. Find a photo that epitomises what the person looks like in your mind. This can be fun to do as a team.

– Record the persona’s average healthcare experience. What is their current state of health? For example, some people with diabetes may need supportive care and some preventive. What level of knowledge do they have about their condition? Do they order their medicines regularly or frequently need support last minute? What healthcare goals and challenges do they have?

– Find out their needs and frustrations. This step is critical because it will tell you how best to approach each group. Determine the types of information they are looking for, and where they are looking for it. Identify the questions they ask when talking with you, for example in an MUR.

– Ascertain the computer literacy of each persona. Find out which media platforms each persona typically uses and design your strategy around the information.