What Are Practical Personas?
When it comes to navigating the customer journey, personas have long
been hailed as the guiding lights. They've been around for ages, aiming
to bring order and clarity to the chaos. But let's face it, traditional
personas can be a bit, well, traditional.
These imaginative constructs are born from snapshots captured through
customer research, leaving your marketing team to decipher the hidden
messages and mold them into fictional characters representing various
segments of your audience. But traditional personas lacked the vivacity
and agility needed to keep up with the dynamic nature of the modern
market.
They are bound by the sluggishness of traditional survey data, where
researchers conducted surveys, sifted through data, and analyzed it for
actionable insights over the course of months. And when customers don’t
respond to those surveys, they need to run for longer periods resulting
in benefits for future cohorts of customers rather than those who took
the time to participate.
But allow us to introduce you to a better way: practical personas.
Practical personas are built on the foundation of real-time,
direct-from-consumer (DFC) data, breathing life into personas and giving
them an operational purpose. Instead of waiting months for insights,
practical personas empower businesses to ask the right questions at the
right time, nudging the customer journey ever closer to conversion.
Practical Personas Defined
While traditional personas were constructed through a process of
decoding market research and transforming it into fluffy fictitious
characters, practical personas take a more straightforward path. Each
piece of information in a practical persona should translate into at
least one marketing action.
It starts by identifying the pieces of information you need for
effective segmentation. Once you've decided what aspects of your
customers' identities matter most, you can craft the questions that will
unlock those valuable insights. These questions become the compass that
guides your brand and the consumer on a shared journey, bringing them
closer together with every step.
Let's say you're in the business of selling outfits that make heads turn
and hearts skip a beat. You understand that knowing the gender your
consumers identify as is a vital piece of marketing information for your
brand. So you ask them to self-segment with the question, "What gender
do you identify with?" By segmenting your customers into practical
personas based on their identified gender, you can tailor your marketing
efforts to each of your customers in real-time.
Examples Of How To Build And Use Practical Personas
What information you should gather varies from brand to brand. But if
you're already a Fairing customer, you can delve into our Question
Bank , a
treasure trove of inspiration that will guide you on which questions to
add to your Question Stream® . These
tools are designed to streamline the customer journey, making your life
easier as an ecommerce brand.
For those who haven't started using Fairing just yet, we've got a list
of publicly available post-purchase survey
questions
that you can explore instead.
Let's dive into a couple of examples that showcase how Fairing's
Question Stream® can create a shared journey with your customers,
illuminating valuable insights along the way.
How Would You Describe Yourself?
Our CEO shared the tale of a niche electronics brand on Subscription
Radio that believed a whopping three-quarters of its customers were
professionals. But, they decided to put it to the test by simply asking
shoppers to self-segment as students, hobbyists, or professionals.
Within just two days, they discovered that professionals made up a mere
20% of their customer base. Talk about eye-opening! This insight opened
doors to vast opportunities for expanding their market and refining
their messaging. This is precisely the kind of impactful discovery that
we've consistently witnessed from brands leveraging Fairing. It's one of
the reasons why we highly recommend asking this question as one of the
first steps during your 14-day free trial
.
Let's take a moment to appreciate the tactical takeaways that this data
provides. By creating practical persona segments based on how customers
describe themselves, you unlock the power of hyper-relevant messaging
and timing retargeting your audience on social media with pinpoint
accuracy. By cross-referencing responses to "How did you hear about us?"
with these personas, you can uncover under-the-radar marketing channels.
Perhaps students are finding you on Reddit, while professionals stumble
upon you organically through podcasts. Armed with this knowledge, those
channels will gladly run ads for you, boosting your reach and
visibility.
Additionally, analyzing the average order value (AOV) across these
customer segments can be a game-changer. Until now, your ad purchases
and sales strategies may not have been fully optimized for return on
investment (ROI). But with persona-segmented AOV metrics in your
arsenal, you can target your media spend and profit margin with laser
precision, generating optimal ROI.
Who Is This Purchase For?
Post-purchase survey questions possess a remarkable ability to reveal
insights from a simple DFC interaction. Let's explore how the learnings
from this question can tie directly to marketing actions.
Here are our recommended response options for the question “Who Is This
Purchase For?” But don't hesitate to follow your heart and adapt them to
your unique market fit:
- Myself
- Friend or family member
- Co-worker or client
- Other
First, any response other than "Myself" automatically segments the
shopper as a buyer, rather than a user. This distinction is crucial for
your marketing automation workflows, especially if you haven't built a
specific workflow for gift-givers. You can nudge gift-givers toward
becoming users by ensuring you deliver the most relevant content.
They've already cleared numerous hurdles toward conversion. They already
know a user of your brand, know what you offer, and where to find it.
Segmenting the gift-giver audience also helps refine your performance
metrics. Splitting your customers between Buyers and Users will unveil
valuable insights into churn rates and content engagement. By
understanding how these two groups perform separately, you gain a
clearer picture of your customer relationships and trends.
To make the most of these insights, consider seeking clarification with
follow-up questions in your Fairing Question Stream®. For instance:
- "What convinced you to buy this product?" Offers a glimpse into the
factors that drove your gift-giving audience to make a purchase.
- "Would you ever consider this product for yourself?" Boldly
confronts the opportunity and guides you in routing customers to the
appropriate automation workflow based on their response.
- "How will you describe this product to the recipient?" It's a unique
and refreshing question that taps into the power of
consumer-generated one-liners and keywords.
Conclusion
We've explored the limitations of traditional personas and discovered
the power of practical personas fueled by real-time, DFC data. They're
built on valuable insights, bringing us closer to our customers and
creating a shared journey.
Fairing's Question Stream® can be a game-changer in building and using
practical personas. From asking customers how they describe themselves
to differentiating buyers and users each question unlocks a treasure
trove of actionable insights. By segmenting your audience and tailoring
your messaging, you can ensure that your marketing efforts are
hyper-relevant, resonating with your customers.
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