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I’ve been singing the praises of persona development since the day I started at HighRoad and I’m seeing that the market is starting to pick up that same message – I see a lot of conference sessions reference the value and importance of persona development, which is fantastic! Organizations (not just the marketing team), need to know who they’re targeting if they want to be able to market effectively. More importantly, and this is why personas matter, you really need to understand what motivates and drives your target audiences. What are they interested in? How do they spend their day? What are their pain points? How do they consume the information you send them? What information do they consume? Are they extroverts or introverts? Are they likely to respond to social media outreach or do they prefer traditional email? How much free time do they have? Are they Baby Boomers, Millennials or Gen X and does that matter when it comes to promoting your programs?
While this sounds like a great company-wide exercise to gain traction and alignment amongst departments that are often heads-down and focused on promoting their individual programs, it does take some time and a level of commitment. This is not something you can do over a lunch hour as it really does take some time to gather information that synthesizes aspects of behavioral as well as psychographic data. As tempting as it might be to lean on your AMS for most of the insights, avoid that typical trap – a well-developed persona is more than a list of demographic data points. It is a layered, 360-degree view of what your persona has done with your organization as well as what they might do with you in the future. Consider these two persona examples below – can you spot the emphasis or distinction each one makes? Which one makes it easier to know what content or programs will appeal to the persona?
The reason a fully developed persona that incorporates demographic, psychographic, behavioral and historical data is so critical, is that it helps your team to focus on targeted messaging. You’re no longer focused on messaging by member type, now you are using a critical eye to map and match your content and programs to your personas – some of whom are already members and some that are prospects. Consider the two examples above – do you have enough information to know what type of content to market to New Member Nathan? More importantly, do you think you know how to craft a marketing campaign that would result in New Member Nathan participating and interacting with the association? What about All-American Adam?
Personas are a way to represent your Members’ DNA. The more you know about them, the easier it becomes to recognize strategies to further convert and pursue revenue.
If you’re wondering how to get started, or are now inspired to dust off the personas you created a few years ago, here is one toolkit that we like to use during our persona development workshops. It provides you with a framework to follow and more importantly, leads you down the path to map your content to each persona, giving you a sense of where your content strategy aligns perfectly and where there might be some gaps.
What I like to call “Phase 2” of Persona Development involves connecting your current data model with the personas you’ve created, because, let’s be honest, if we don’t use them, then what’s the value of creating the personas in the first place? Phase 2 is about data mapping and using technology to identify and assign your personas to specific tasks, activities and campaigns as they start to interact and respond to your digital marketing efforts. Marketing automation platforms such as HubSpot, Marketo and Act-On are designed for this type of mapping effort, but you can also leverage your AMS to record your persona assignment to each contact record so that there is a centralized way for everyone in your association to see who they might be interacting with.
Bottom line – persona development is a critical step in the path to inbound marketing, personalization and marketing automation. Avoid the typical trap of relying on just demographic data as it generally won’t provide your teams with enough information to craft effective campaigns that result in conversion.
If you have any questions about additional resources to use or how to approach "Phase 2", consider joining us during our HighRoad Office Hours every Wednesday and we can discuss your challenges or questions in real time.
