What is a Persona?
A Persona is an archetype, or sketch, of a customer. It describes who they are and what their goals are.
How are Personas made?
Personas are created from identifying trends among similar customers through many qualitative one-on-one interviews, along with other data sources such as survey data.
Why use personas?
Personas are a tool that allows us to understand our customers more deeply and keep them at the forefront of our thoughts and decision-making. Unlike segments, they add the emotional and behavioral component to our understanding — all the warm and fuzzy stuff.
What’s the best way to use personas?
It is normal to have two or three personas considered for your product or service, but you must have a primary (or lead) Persona. Therefore, whenever you are making a decision about your product, service, or content, ask yourself: “What would our primary Persona expect/want/relate to?”
Here’s an excellent way to imagine how to use personas. Let’s say we are making a piece of software for a sales team. Three people interact with the software:
- The IT Admin manages accounts for access to the software
- The Sales Admin manages all records, reports, and data in the software
- The Sales Manager views the quarterly reports from the software
Who should be our primary Persona in this scenario? If you guessed the Sales Admin, then you’d be right! They use the software all day, every day, so when we make decisions about the software, they should be the first personas we think about.
What is a Segment?
So, what is a Segment if a Persona is all the warm and fuzzy stuff?
Well, Segments don’t provide direct insights into a single customer archetype. Instead, they bring insights about groups of customers with common use cases and more than likely talk to one another. A Segment must be unique, and the people in that Segment should produce a common reaction to a marketing tactic.
There are typically four approaches to segmentation:
- Demographic: Gender, Nationality, Occupation, Marital Status
- Geographic: Country, State, Culture, Language
- Behavioural: Content consumption, Purchasing habits, and history, Brand Awareness, Knowledge of product or service
- Psychographic: Values and Benefits, Lifestyle, Interests, and Hobbies, Personality Traits
Demographic and Geographic are often considered the easiest of these four as the data is plentiful, easy to access, and simple to compare. On their own, however, they are less insightful.
Behavioral and Psychographic tend to give a deeper understanding of the customer’s motivations and interests, which may allow for clearer targeting; however, they are both a bit trickier to understand. Of the two, Psychographic is the most similar to Personas, which leads me on nicely to my next point.
Should I use Personas or Segments?
Well, that depends on your goals. If you are building a piece of software and trying to decide on how a feature works, then you should have a keen eye on who your Primary Persona is. But, if you are trying to understand how the market will react to a new product launch, then a Segment is the way to go. Really though, the correct answer is you should use both.
When people think of Segments, they often think of harsh boundaries. However, this often leads to the temptation of bringing in customers who are just outside the boundary, increasing the segment size but equally diluting it.
Geoffrey Moore (Crossing The Chasm) instead recommends that instead of focusing on the boundaries of a Segment, we instead look to its center, wherein lies our poster child, the most representative customer, the epitome of the Segment, the Persona.
By focusing on these Key Personas in the Segment and getting the marketing, branding, product, or service just right for them, then all of that positive work will still resonate with all the others around them.
Wrapping Up
I hope you found this introduction to Personas and Segments useful.
If you want to read or watch more, these are some of the valuable sites and videos I referenced in the writing of this blog!