How User Personas Validate Brand Decisions
Imagine a marketplace. Assume that there are two shops there. One of them has more buyers but is unable to sell well. The other has fewer buyers but can turn a profit.
Why is that?
Simply because the second shop is using strategies that appeal to existing and potential target audiences. And they do so by personifying the target audience and creating brand user personas. This speeds up the process and concisely provides relevant information.
User personas are fictitious characters representative of potential users. They are put together by the marketers using data aggregation. There are many sources of collecting this data, with brand identity questionnaires being a preferred choice.
Having the data take the form of a person helps the brand shape how consumers may feel about its products. When used correctly, the information enables growth.
For instance, a perfume brand may create a persona of a 25-year-old beauty enthusiast. They indulgently buy beauty products, find animal testing unfair, live in urban locations, etc. Most notably, they are looking for a long-lasting and soft fragrance.
User personas are a necessary tool to help businesses. Positioning, customer experience, and decisions about marketing strategies can all benefit from it. There is a lot of untapped potential in the world of user personas. When used properly, it can help increase the brand’s reach.
Benefit To The Brand
User persona helps companies get a clear idea about their target audience. Everything from points of attraction to points of contention gets presented in the same place. However, it is an added step that consumes time and resources.
So, why inculcate this process in your already functional organizational system?
Reference for user-based design:
Whether it is to test a particular initiative, launch a new product, or expand on existing services. Having user personas as a template helps determine if the new ventures would sit well with the target audience.
Personas also give the company the option to test how specific personas (i.e., part of the client base) may react to new developments.
Expand the base:
A set of company-specific user persona helps identify existing and potential consumers. Necessary background information- demographic, psychographic divisions, preferences, communication channels etc.-is studied in detail.
Knowing the consumer base guides strategy to increase the reach of the company. Personas then provide insight that helps expand into new markets and expand the audience.
Specificity:
Developing and implementing strategies specifically curated to suit the needs of the consumers is very important for companies. Crafted personas allow companies to recognize habits and trends associated with an ideal target audience.
Using brand personas during developmental phases gives a unique opportunity to assess the potential customer interactions.
Useful for project and design management:
With the personas functioning as a primary reference, it is easy to keep track of the marketing process. It helps keep everyone on the same page about how the project should proceed.
In addition, designs based on persona will sit well with the target audience.
Great for deployment and product positioning:
When considering how to position a product, it’s important to revisit a persona to assess how best to stimulate sales. Based on demographic divisions highlighted in the personas, brands figure out what method works best for which segment.
They can provide insight on where to place ads and how to target specific media markets.
Simply put, a user persona aids in the development of new and refined ideas that make the brand more appealing. Brand personas help analyze the interactions consumers have with the brands.
Companies can thus capitalize on things they did well and proactively work on what they could improve.
How do you create user personas?
User personas are essential in the creative development phase because they serve as a reference. A more nuanced understanding of the consumer base is possible when the user personas are well-researched.
It is necessary to also craft personas based on specific segments of the target audience. This allows the products/services to be measured against distinct parts of the consumer base.
The best user personas are the product of taking information from the correct sources. Creating a consumer persona has two steps- a) information gathering & b) creating the personas. The correct information collected can be arranged to make sense.
Collecting information
In the information-gathering stage, it is necessary to use the correct sources to make the best consumer personas.
Interviews:
Conversations with existing customers reveal the strengths and weaknesses of the brand. Strategies are adjusted to accommodate the needs better. Knowing what sets you apart from the competitors in the consumer’s eyes can help make more focused personas.
Data Sources:
A survey, perusal of marketing portals, or even simply going through the social media conversations around the brand and its offerings can reveal a lot. Customer reviews, interactions around a social media post, and other such things are a direct insight into the minds of the consumer. Survey answers also serve as feedback to check if the assumptions are correct.
Creating user personas and using them for effective strategies is a team effort. The problem arises when companies cannot figure out how to delegate these tasks in-house. A digital marketing company can streamline the procedure. A team of content/copywriters can collect the information via data and brand questionnaires.
What are the elements involved?
Naming the personas:
A name gives identity to the user persona. Names that can match the demographic are an advantage.
Utilizing your creativity here helps make the persona more specific, giving way to realness. With user personas, realness is always a requirement.
Creating ideologies:
Beyond the basic information of age, demography, shopping preferences, etc., it is crucial to give them an ideology. One that represents the personas’ worldview, and way of life, among other things. It makes the brand personas realistic and better representative of the consumer base.
Giving a backstory:
Knowing the buying history of a user persona is essential. But adding further details like members of a family, education background, income range, and preferred hangout spots, allows for a better assessment of the persona.
Personal information can dictate buying habits and marketing strategies are adjusted based on the same.
Quirks and habits:
Like any person, user personas should also have distinct personalities. Case in point, an outdoor adventure gear brand would craft an adventurous persona of a person who follows many adventure community groups on Facebook. Assigning personality traits, frequented social media sites, and hobbies is a crucial step to crafting brand personas.
These traits provide touchpoints to keep in mind when making alterations to strategies.
Goals, aspirations & complaints:
Beyond what the consumer wants, there is space for what the consumer needs and their pain points. Working with personas reveals these important factors. Identifying the persona’s aspirations are also valuable. Being aware of the problems allows the creation of solution-oriented strategies. For example, are they interested in college? Are they saving up? These kinds of traits may change their purchasing behavior.
Assign an image:
Assigning a face and body to a persona can individualize them. The company should not use images of celebrities or known fictional characters. It creates unconscious biases when it comes to assigning the persona attributes.
Consumer behavior patterns:
A brand persona is incomplete without mention of consumer behavior patterns. Every consumer follows a set pattern when it comes to buying behavior. Are they middle-aged wine connoisseurs or are they senior citizens who like bulk deals? Clear and concise reference points would help the brand sell better.
Where they shop:
Again this is a great way to assess how to win consumers through association with favorite brands or products. For instance, A beverage brand specializing in flavored coffee would have inquisitive caffeine enthusiasts as its target audience.
Keeping the persona as a reference, the brand can figure out the best way to target the messaging strategies.
Together, these insights create the best jumping point for making the most appropriate brand personas. It assists in curating strategies keeping in mind what the target audience wants and how the brand can provide it.
A company does its best to ensure that its strategies effectively pull in consumer engagement. Well-made user personas afford many advantages to the company. Knowing what the consumer base looks, feels, and interacts like can help the brand make strategies accordingly.
User personas are an essential reference that can dictate how the strategies may look. A brand persona is most useful during the creative planning stage. User personas may be hypothetical but their necessity is very real.
