I spoke at an online summit recently.

The audience was in the age range of 25 to 60.

I always use interactive tools to make my sessions interesting, so I began asking them to anonymously confirm their ages on their devices. 

The screen showed their ages as well as the average – 41.

I then asked the audience to confirm how many of them were aged 41.

Just 2% said yes.

The same thing would’ve happened if I had asked about their annual income and related parameters (that we often use in buyer persona research).

Most buyer personas often target the average persona, but in these cases, the resulting average persona is representative of only 2–5% of the audience.

Who we’re really after is the typical persona who represents 20–50% of our target market, not the average persona.