Creating Connections with Personas

Branding, Marketing

Marketing can be very complex. The thought process of getting the right message to the right person at the right time on the right medium can be overwhelming. This complexity grows when you think about tailoring your marketing efforts to specific individuals, known as personas. If you are overwhelmed with adding yet another piece to the marketing puzzle, don’t be. Developing and implementing the basics of personas into your marketing efforts is quite simple.

 

What is a Persona and how do I develop them?

A persona is the aspect of someone’s character that is presented to or perceived by others. In marketing language, it’s a fictitious, generalized version of a real customer – yours. Think of it as a buyer profile. Setting up and selecting personas can get very detailed or be very basic. For starters, I recommend setting up basic personas for three buyer types. While there is some guesswork involved, it’s best to make it as factual as possible because they need to represent a real customer. It is best to set up your personas based on your customer interaction with core customers. Of your three personas, find out why and when they buy from you and what triggers their spending money with you. Think of it this way. If your three personas buy the exact same product from you understand why each buys and for what separate reasons. Perhaps one persona is attracted to the variety of products you offer, while another is attracted to your brand because of peer recommendations, while another person is attracted because of convenience.

Give Your Personas a Personality

Once you’ve gathered up enough data on your three personas have fun and name them. For instance persona one can be Bob, a 30-35 year old married male with two young children who buys because of the variety your brand offers. Persona two, Karen, could be a 20 something millennial female who is greatly influenced by the peer recommendations of her friends on social media. Persona three being Carl, could be the 50 year-old established career executive who is at the pinnacle of his earning potential and buys because he or she never has time to shop and doesn’t mind paying extra for your product because it is convenient.

 

Communicate the Appropriate Message

Next, identify a message that will resonate with your personas, not one that you think they need to hear. Design these messages around their character traits and buying habits and then communicate these messages across your marketing mediums, print, social, web, direct mail and the like. It’s also important to have to have testimonials from your personas and visual images to match their profile. Don’t overly complicate your messages. Most of the time the features and benefits of your business can be verbally massaged to match the buying patterns of your personas.

While developing personas is a critical marketing element, don’t be overwhelmed with an inordinate amount of detail. It’s really not as complicated as it might seem at first. As always, Serff Creative is here to assist you with all of your marketing needs, including developing and implementing personas.

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