Do you really know who your customers are? Do you take a 30,000-foot view or a more granular, zoomed-in view in understanding and describing them?

I did several workshops this week on personas and journey mapping. The two are intimately intermingled, and that’s an important point to remember.

But first, back to my original question: Do you really know who your customers are? How does your company define or segment them? Do you talk about “target segments” or “target customers” or “target demographics?”

Guess what? Your customers are not target anything. If you think your customers are men between the ages of 18 and 49, for example, you’re dead wrong. When it comes to understanding who customers are, what their needs are, what they’re trying to do or achieve with your organization, and how you’ll design a better experience, good luck with that! Targets are broad, usually ill-defined, and meaningless.

You can’t take a 30,000-foot view of your customers, which is what targets do. No, there’s a better way to describe your prospects or customers. You need to drill down deeper and develop personas, which will focus on the needs and jobs to be done by the customer.

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