{"id":29,"date":"2007-08-09T10:19:24","date_gmt":"2007-08-09T16:19:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shaydigital.com\/?p=29"},"modified":"2007-10-15T13:59:02","modified_gmt":"2007-10-15T19:59:02","slug":"know-thy-consumer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shaydigital.com\/index.php\/insights\/know-thy-consumer\/","title":{"rendered":"Know Thy Consumer"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you have gone through a web redesign in the last couple of years, you are probably familiar with user personas.\u00c2\u00a0 Fortunately, most interactive agencies have integrated persona development into their standard design process.\u00c2\u00a0 In case\u00c2\u00a0you haven’t worked with user personas before, they\u00c2\u00a0are\u00c2\u00a0usually written descriptions<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0of fictional characters who represent key target audiences.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0Personas bring ‘users to life’ by communicating motivations, needs,\u00c2\u00a0objectives, and\u00c2\u00a0expectations\u00c2\u00a0that drive their online behavior.<\/p>\n

Personas provide extremely useful insights and work like a compass to help guide your marketing efforts.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 They need to part of your marketing planning for\u00c2\u00a0a number of reasons:<\/p>\n

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  1. The process of developing personas should reinforce that neither you nor anyone in your company is your target consumer.\u00c2\u00a0 Even if you are a user of your organization\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s product or service, working at your company, especially if you are a marketer, creates biases that make you different.<\/li>\n
  2. Creating personas help you think of your consumers in terms of needs, wants, and motivations, instead of gender, age, and household income.\u00c2\u00a0 Personas create a much richer picture of your consumer than any demographic could.\u00c2\u00a0 To me, knowing that someone looks at the purchase of a high-end boat as a status symbol is much more useful than knowing that the average household income of yacht purchasers is $10 million (I made-up number \u00e2\u20ac\u201c all I know is that I am not part of that target audience).<\/li>\n
  3. Through persona development, you segment your target audience into groups that allow you customize your marketing and tailor your offerings in a way that you couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t if you focused only on the notion of a single, average user.\u00c2\u00a0 For example, Wal-Mart has identified a group of consumers who will probably never buy clothes from its stores but who are excellent targets for electronics.\u00c2\u00a0 Email campaigns that focus specifically on DVD players, plasma TVs, mp3 players, etc. are going to be much more effective in attracting that group than general, \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcSunday Circular\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 types of email blasts.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Know thy consumer is one of the commandments of\u00c2\u00a0marketing and personas are a great tool in helping you\u00c2\u00a0refining your understanding of key target consumers. If you haven\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t created personas, you should.\u00c2\u00a0 If you have created personas, make sure that you are using your personas for all of your online marketing efforts, including email campaigns, banner advertising, and search marketing.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

    The following are some resources on developing personas:<\/p>\n