Personas – personalisation with purpose
Personas are fictional characters created to represent your target audience. And, while they are fictional, they are based on research and a thorough analysis of user data such as demographics, behaviours, preferences and pain points.
They are a valuable tool that provide insights and guidance for effectively engaging with your target audience and improving the user experience.
There are numerous communication activities where personas are needed to ensure effective and targeted content. This includes, but is not limited to, marketing campaigns, brand development and website development.
A key benefit to creating personas is that it allows you to look at things with a different lens – recognising that different people have varying needs and expectations, and personalising communication efforts to address these.
Personalisation is becoming a top priority for many businesses because they’re seeing the direct improvement to their bottom line. In a 2018 survey, 80% of client-side respondents found an uplift due to implementing personalisation.
Companies such as Mecca, IKEA, The Iconic, Coca-Cola and Sephora are just a few examples of companies that recognise the importance of personalisation. In fact, according to the 2023 Adobe Digital Trends (Content Management) Report, 92% of organisation are reportedly striving to deliver consistent, personalised content to more channels.
And while there are many strategies to help you determine the needs of your target audience (or audiences), personas help you gain a deep understanding of their unique and nuanced differences. From there, you can personalise your approach.
Reasons to develop personas
Audience understanding
Personas provide a way to humanise and empathise with the target audience. By creating detailed profiles that reflect the unique characteristics, motivations and challenges of the audience, you can gain a deeper understanding of their needs, preferences and pain points.
Content customisation
Personas allow you to tailor messages to different audience segments. By considering the personas’ preferences, communication style, and information needs, you can craft targeted content that is relevant, compelling and engaging.
Message targeting
Personas assist in identifying and targeting specific market segments. By segmenting the audience based on different personas, you can create focused marketing strategies, ensuring that the right messages reach the right people at the right time.
Improved user experience
Personas can help in designing user-centric experiences. By considering the personas’ goals, behaviours, and pain points, communicators can create communication strategies, interfaces and interactions that are intuitive, user-friendly and effective.
Improved decision making
Personas provide a common reference point for decision-making processes across the organisation. When creating communication strategies, personas help reduce ambiguity and create a focal point, ensuring decisions are made with the audience’s best interests in mind.
At Phillips Group, we partner with clients to develop a human-centred approach to communication.
Our research team harnesses intelligent insights using real-time data that informs the development of personas that reflect your target audience’s demographics, needs, preferences, behaviours and pain points.
From these insights we can also assist you to craft compelling, targeted content that is relevant, compelling, and engaging.
