The name souls persona was coined from the words Buyer Persona. A phrase used by HubSpot to represent a targeted audience of prospective buyers
According to HubSpot, “a buyer persona is a semi-fictional representation of your ideal buyer based on data, interviews, and some educated guesses. It’s essentially a definition of your ideal buyer presented in a way that sounds like it’s talking about a specific person.”
If buyer persona is targeted to buyers and businesses, then the Souls persona will be targeted to lives in the digital world.
Business is for profit, but whatever we do in the digital world as Christians and church are to reach out to lives for Jesus.
Therefore, Souls Persona is a semi-fictional representation of a targeted soul in the digital world.
In our journey in the digital world, either on social media, websites, blogs, podcasts, emails, YouTube, and more, there is a need for a souls persona to give you direction in your online activities.
We have to define our narratives in the digital world. Applying digital business strategies to kingdom business will only produce a profit-oriented digital ministry.
We are targeting souls, and our strategies must be likewise
Who is it For?
- Digital Ministers
- Digital Evangelists
- Digital Missionaries
- Christian Bloggers
- Church Social Media Team
- Church Website Managers
- Christian Social Media Influencers
If you are a church or ministry, your souls persona must align with your mission, vision, or mandate.
Whatever you do online is an extension of your church or ministry. I call it Your Church or Ministry Online.
Age Range:
5 – 12yrs; 13 – 19yrs; 20 – 35yrs; 36 – 50yrs; 51 – 70yrs; 71 and above
What is the range of your target audience? Are they youths, teenagers, adults, or kids?
Location:
If your ministry is targeting a particular location, or what you are preparing a souls persona for is targeting a specific location, maybe country, state, city, or continent.
Gender:
Are you targeting male or female
Marital Status:
Single, married, divorced, single parents.
Language:
National language or local language
Status:
Media men, pastors, evangelists, members, and so on
Education Level:
School graduate, fluent in communication, BSc or higher degrees
Spiritual Status:
Unbeliever; Believer; New Converts; Growing; Attaining Maturity
Spiritual Struggling Point:
What are they yearning for spiritually? An unbeliever is yearning for salvation. A new convert is yearning for spiritual growth, or someone with an addiction is yearning to be free.
What You Can Do:
What is your plan for solving their problems
This will guide you in many ways
- What social media platform to choose
- What content is appropriate for them
- What communication strategy would be appropriate? Depending on their educational level, spiritual status, struggling points, language, and others
- How to structure your digital ministry
Why is Souls Persona Important to Your Digital Ministry
- Gives you FOCUS
- Decide on the right content
- Choosing social media platforms
- Helps in setting Goals
- Getting your message to the right people
How to create a Souls Persona
- Put yourself in their shoes
- Do research
- Ask questions
- Do survey
Accuracy is not the goal. You need to think as they think. If you are targeting the younger generation, ask what kind of questions they ask online, the talking point in their community, what they are struggling with spiritually, and so on. Research online, ask people around you, create a survey form and send it to their community. With this, you will have an idea of your souls persona.
Applying Souls Persona to Digital Strategy
- Church Website
If you want to create a church or ministry website, your souls persona will help in your website tone, website layout, how you want them to interact with your website, your call to action button, and also the content on your blog.
- Social Media
As for social media, it is a big world. Your souls persona will help you narrow down your targeted audience, the kind of content you will create, either to use images or videos, the platform to choose, and others.
- Christian Blog
Souls Persona is more important for a blog because it will help in choosing your niche, narrowing your niche, doing keyword research, the kind of blog posts, the tone of your post, the type of content, and all.
It can also help create a strategy for your podcast, email list, YouTube, and every other digital strategy to reach out to souls.
Example
Christian Blog on Parenting
Age Range:
25 – 35yrs; 36 – 50yrs;
Location:
Nigeria
Gender:
Both Parents but more emphasis on mothers
Marital Status:
Married and single parents
Language:
National language
Status:
Any category of believers that are parents
Education Level:
Fluent in communication
Spiritual Status:
- Believers
- Spiritual Struggling Point
- Raising Godly Children
- Be a good father and mother
- Raising lovely Children
What You Can Do:
- Teach them practical ways to raise godly Children
- Provide a community of learning for them
- Create a Prayer group to help them with prayers
What you can deduce from the Souls Persona Above
Social Media Platform:
Facebook because most parents use Facebook, and also, there is a group feature on Facebook that can help build up a community
Proposed Keywords
- Godly Parents
- Raising Children
- Lovely Children
- Parenting
The tone of writing:
Explanatory and Instructive. Because the blog will explain how they have been parenting in the wrong way and how to correct it
Kind of blog content: Lists and Guides
Example
- Five ways to be a loving Parent
- Practical Ways to Monitor Your Child’s Attitudes