Using Audience Personas to Improve Digital User Experience

Transcription

1 PUNCHKICK INTERACTIVE Using Audience Personas to Improve Digital User Experience WHY TRADITIONAL AUDIENCE SEGMENTS MISS THE MARK AND HOW PSYCHOGRAPHIC PERSONAS CAN LEAD TO SUCCESS TODAY 55 East Monroe Street Floor 36 Chicago, IL punchkick.com

2 PERSONAS STRATEGY GUIDE Table of contents 1 What is a persona? 2 Personas for consumer marketing 3 Personas for experience design 4 Personas for employer brand 5 B2B buyer personas 6 How to build and use personas

3 PERSONAS STRATEGY GUIDE 3 1 What is a persona? A persona is an abstract characterization of a psychographic market segment. For most of marketing and advertising history, audiences were segmented using demographics such as age, race, and gender. Traditional audience segments might be Hispanic women ages or young urban professionals. But in reality, demographics alone don t define an individual s preferences or purchases. Truly meaningful audience variation is based on goals, motivations, and behaviors and demographics are only important in so far as they impact those deeper traits.

4 PERSONAS STRATEGY GUIDE 4 As a result, today s marketers are less concerned with demographics and are focusing more on psychographics, which transcend superficial boundaries and get down to what truly matters for marketing and design. If a 26-year-old Hispanic female and a 46-year-old white male: have similar lifestyles and incomes buy the same tech products for the same reasons use those products in the same way...then tech companies should consider them the same type of customer even if their demographics are widely different. Some personas are given names, photos, ages, and even personal interests. In other cases, the personas are more like archetypes, with titles like Tolerating Functionalists or Ambitious Artisan instead of names. And the persona s characteristics and content will depend entirely on what s relevant to the brand, product, or experience in question. But no matter what form they take, all personas are built to accomplish the same goal to help marketers, designers, and stakeholders empathize with the audience s needs and keep them in center focus.

5 PERSONAS STRATEGY GUIDE 5 2 Personas for consumer marketing Consumer marketing uses personas to understand why customers gravitate towards certain brands or products. Researchers identify the factors that distinguish types of customers for that market, and compare the segments side-by-side on those criteria. In this next section we ll examine an example of a demand segment for pet food to demonstrate personas for consumer marketing.

6 6 PERSONA S STRATE GY G UIDE As child As family member As active partner As pet As farm implement Low Moderate Low Medium High Empty Nester Upscale Families Single/ DINKS Mid-market Families Large rural Households Small Purebreds Lovable Mutts Large Purebreds Respected Mutts Utilitarian Hounds Dog s choice human-like Fun, variety, balanced Nutrition, Performance Basic Nutrition Least expensive Retailer Vet, Retailer Retailer Sources Info Relationship Active Nutritionists Price Sensitivity Tolerating Functionalists Caring Companions Geo- Demos Healthseeking Providers Dog-OGraphics Loving Indulgers Dog as functional Benefits Sought Dog as love object Relationship to Dog Self, Family *Chart courtesy of How Companies Win by Dave Calhoun and Rick Kash Notice how the demographics are treated as secondary to psychographics. While some personas are more common in certain demographics for example, Active Nutritionists are most common in dual-income no-kid households that s not the main differentiator between the personas. It s the holistic picture of their attitudes and behaviors towards pets that will determine what kind of dog food they ll buy, which ultimately is the most important outcome for consumer marketing.