Audience-first becomes audience-always
Back in 2013, Trendwatching revealed we had entered the age of Post-Demographic Consumerism; where consumers aren't behaving as brands assumed they should as over 45s, parents, motorists or homeowners - or whatever their attributes 'on paper'. Instead, they are constructing their identities and expressing themselves how they want to. The internet has super-charged this evolution, not least because ideas are free-flowing, people can find each other through their passions (no matter how niche) but also the ability to experiment, express ourselves and be creative is undermining convention.
Imagining your audience using only traditional demographics like age, gender and income is simply not fit for purpose because they no longer define people (…did they ever?). And of course, it's pretty problematic to make assumptions or holding biased views about people based on those attributes.
Behaviour, interests and attitudes are far better qualities to understand about your customers, and this insight informs your messaging and marketing strategy.
This means that to keep pace, brands need to get better at attracting and uniting customers around their passion points; connecting on a level where they feel connected and understood.
At best, it doesn't resonate or get remembered at all… at worst, it's an offensive perpetuation of stereotypes.
Misunderstanding is a missed opportunity
In 2019, we saw lots of industry commentary on marketing and the over 50s: namely the huge opportunity that brands are squandering by failing to understand the wants needs (and spending power) of this group. This group actually feels invisible, angry and depressed by marketing and communications they see around them - which is a shame in itself, but surely with such financial implications brands will be forced to sit up and take note: 49% actively avoid brands who ignore their age group.
Millennials and Gen Z also reject such broad, unwieldy labels: 'Don't call us anything. The whole notion of cohesive generations is nonsense.'
If your brand and messaging is going to resonate, you must get to the heart of your audience and seek rich, attitudinal information. We've seen how niche and special interest communities thrive below the surface of mainstream where authentic connection with each other - and brands - is possible.
The thing with digital is that it's increasing the ease and frequency with which we can get our content seen by people. The message needs to jump out to the right people. Connecting with humans is the one thing about marketing that will never change, no matter the technology.
Data sources for building personas
First to caveat, when we talk about personas, we're not talking about commercially portioned groups of people with £x income attached to them (these segments tend to be based around a data source like Mosaic or Acorn, with demographic, lifestyle, post code and size of opportunity per segment). In our world, we use them to add colour and texture to flat demographic personas so they inform more effective communication; be that through social media, our PR storytelling or the content we write for them onsite. While commercial segments are important, basing comms around them could run the risk of treating them as a homogenous group.
Go hunting for people that look like your target audience. Test your assumptions and be open-minded and curious.
Thinking through questions about their situation and wider life helps you understand how you can find and connect with them further up the funnel - i.e. before they're ready to buy. What does this person watch, listen to and enjoy? Where do they get their news and information from? What kind of apps do they use? How do they use social media, to follow brands?
Here are a few places you can start looking:
Desk research. Social listening can be a good starting point. From there, you can start building hypotheses to test on real people. Go to comments sections of publications they might read and see what they're passionate/arguing about.
Quant research. Certainly not critical but it's good for identifying broad themes and could be best suited to questions relating to your product and proposition. What are their pain points, what do they value the most? This can give you plenty of areas to explore in subsequent qualitative research. The drawbacks of quant in this context is that it can tell you something is happening, but not necessarily why. Free texts boxes are great but use sparingly to avoid survey drop outs.
Qualitative research: like focus groups, individual immersion sessions or paired interviews. This enables you to really explore the why, but also you learn so much more about the person that's behind those decisions. gives you the richness and depth of insight - and mining that free-flowing language is like sifting for gold. You don't get those kinds of nuggets with just quantitative research.
(If you are limited on budget, it's still important to talk to real people. Find a few people that encapsulate the kind of person you're looking for and ask them as many questions as they have the patience for, including what it would take to listen to a brand like you. Light touch is better than nothing.)
Search behaviour analysis. Keyword research can also be revealing about their behaviours and knowledge gaps. There is a lot of insight to be gleaned from the way people search - questions are specific and detailed, revealing exactly what they want to know.
Building your personas
A simple framework can help you form an empathy map* for each persona you have identified. These can be as simple as a collection of visuals and logos that sum them up. Find an image that you feel captures 'them' so you have a person in mind and give them a name. Sketch them out with words, phrases… even quotes.
Then think about them through the lens of your proposition, to arrive at their pains and gains. When it comes to your product, what's the problem you're solving for them? What are the emotional benefits? These are not the same as features; think more 'enhances my status', 'makes me feel in control' or 'helps me feel safe' than 'saves me money' or 'makes me healthier'.
Pains and gains can be summed up in one sentence each in the form of a quote, something they'd actually say.
How do you know when your personas are ready? Show them to a colleague who hasn't been involved. They should be able to read them and 'get them'; maybe they'll even say, 'I know someone exactly like them' (this reaction = persona jackpot).
How to use personas
This above exercise is only as good as the plan that follows it: once built, don't let your personas collect dust in a folder on the intranet. It's surprisingly common to forgo this step. This insight must lead to action.
You've created them with objectives in mind, so the internal launch to the teams that will be using them is key for their understanding and buy in. This can be a lot of fun.
Launch to all teams and immerse them into the persona's world. Quotes, details, facts and attitudes for each can really bring them to life. Customer teams can role play with them, marketing teams can ideate around content they're likely to value and engage with.
Make them visual and put them up around the office. Mail Chimp remains a fantastic example of sharp, visual and simple personas. Posters, life-size cut outs, or screensavers: just keep them front and centre. Having an actual person in your sights really focuses the mind when making content, website journeys and comms decisions. As it should.
Keep them front and centre: bring them to meetings, write with them in mind. We know our clients' personas affectionately by first name and it's common for us to discuss in our StoryPlanning meetings: "Would Morgan read that publication?", "Is Christine more likely to be on Facebook or Instagram?" and "What sort of thing would Gregg Google if they get stuck somewhere in the buying process, what answers is he looking for?"
This informs your search behaviour analysis; your onsite content strategy and your target media list.
Moving forward
These personas aren't set in stone. You can keep refreshing and updating them as if they were living, breathing entities. Check in with teams on how useful people are finding them; are they using them at all? They should be influencing the way you communicate (and don't communicate) for the better, so make sure they're working for you.
And of course, enjoy getting to know them.
* This is our empathy map that hangs on our wall, ready to be written on and filled with post-it notes at any given moment. Feel free to download and print out a copy for yourself.