When developing a website, brochure, advert or in fact any marketing collateral, it’s imperative that you understand your customer. Exactly how far you choose to delve into this is down to personal preference. However, the more detailed the insight you have, the more likely it is that you will see a much improved ROI on your marketing. The more we understand our customers, the more targeted and relevant we can present our offering.

What is a persona? Simply put, a persona is a representation of a particular audience segment, based on various degrees of quantative and qualitative research. In order to develop successful persona profiles, you need to know where to get the information and the right questions to ask. The questions asked should be targeted, and aim to capture your audience’s motivations, frustrations and needs. Building personas for your core audience should help to improve the way you solve problems for your customers.

Persona research is essential to have, especially when justifying budgets/strategies to internal stakeholders. They are your secret weapon. If 4 out of 5 of your personas don’t read that trade magazine, then why are you still paying to advertise in there? Why is that slice of marketing budget not being allocated to TV advertising, animations or even web – All of which your personas prefer?

Personas are built on information which is collected from real users, they help you to understand who will actually be using/viewing your chosen marketing channel. Once we understand our customers, it’s then possible to target specific messages to them. In terms of web design, personas can be used to make key design and functionality decisions during the UX process (User Experience).

There are a number of different avenues to explore when creating personas, and a lot of how much you can do depends on budgets, availability of resource, and the type of project you are focusing on. Some examples of ways to gather data are explained below;

• Desk based research
• Focus groups
• Online surveys

Desk research

This is the first port of call, we need to gather and analyse information which is already available in print or published on the internet. Also, speaking to your staff members about what they perceive about their customers can also be useful at this point.

Focus groups

This is a great way of getting open and honest feedback from customers. Do some brainstorming on their likes/dislikes of your current offering, what are you doing well, what could you improve on? Focus groups need to be structured, and you need to gather the information in a clear and concise format. Let the group chat amongst themselves, whilst occasionally steering the conversation to gain further insight into what it is exactly that they want. Are there any competitors out there who are getting it right? If so, why? All of this information is key to defining your customer.

Online Surveys

Not all customers are available for focus groups, so in addition to focus groups we always suggest sending out Online Surveys. These tend to be more structured questions, and can offer us a good set of statistical and qualitative data to back up your Desk & Focus Group research. Surveys shouldn’t be too long, especially if there is no incentive for the user to complete them. Offering multiple choice answers, and ratings scales often reduce the time needed to complete them.

You will find templates all over the web for what a persona should look like, however here at Absolute we believe that they should be specific to you and your business. You may only be developing personas for your website at the moment, but that doesn’t mean that in the future you won’t want to use them for an email campaign, or deciding on whether to attend that expensive trade show next year. Here at Absolute, we aim to build complete profiles which can be used to complement your marketing strategy moving forward. We sit with our customers and find out what exactly they want to know, and how they want to use that information – this then gives us the tools to put a plan into place of how to find out the required information, and how to present it.

The final research document is a vital asset in the successful development of any stakeholder led project. There are many companies who plan to redesign a website, or develop a brochure without fully understanding exactly who their customer is. We are all guilty of assuming we know our customers, but without having done any research with real customers, how can you be sure? The research document you produce will become a fundamental asset to you moving forward, and should always be referenced when planning any future projects.

If you are thinking about starting a persona development project, please give us a call on 01204 478202.