What is Persona Marketing? Explaining the benefits and how to set it up.

In the marketing world, a persona is a fictitious customer profile with detailed settings. Personas are created to develop, improve, and promote products and services to customers in this category. However, there are some important points to keep in mind regarding how to set up the data. It is important to understand these when setting up the personas. In this issue, we will introduce not only the benefits of persona marketing and the procedure for setting personas, but also some successful examples.

About Personas

The word "persona" is derived from the Latin actor's covering (mask). In marketing, it is used to describe an "ideal customer.

What is Persona Marketing?

Persona marketing is a marketing technique in which a persona is drawn specifically as an image of a user, and measures are optimized by analyzing the user's thinking and behavioral tendencies. In the marketing world, a persona is a fictitious image of a user who purchases a product or uses a service.

A single user image is created by determining basic data such as fictitious name, age, and gender; position in society in terms of family structure, place of residence, and place of work; and items linked to economic behavior such as financial capability, interests, and future goals, and sometimes a model or computer graphics of a person is used to create the image.

Personas are often considered together with targets, but while personas are detailed images of users, targets are a larger group of users than personas, such as "women in their 20s.

When do you set up personas?

Persona setting is effective when you want to derive a more appealing announcement strategy.
For example, when distributing information on the launch of a women's cosmetics product, if the target is limited to the gender of "female," it is difficult to determine what kind of content and to what extent to distribute it for optimal effect, and the announcement strategy becomes unclear.

However, if a persona such as "female, 32 years old, works at a publishing company, commutes 1.5 hours to work, wants to lead a more efficient life" is set, the target audience can be expected to respond with appeals such as "skin care is a concern due to age" and "it takes time to commute and people want to get ready in the morning in a short time, so we should emphasize the new product's PR point of 'easy care'. The information that is expected to be appealing will become more specific and easier to organize.

In addition, when a new product or service is not well accepted by the target audience and the reason is not from the sales side but from the consumer's side, persona creation can be effective.

Specifically, the evaluation of the company's products and services is analyzed from the perspective of a fictitious persona with detailed settings of "age, work, and holiday schedule" to consider what the desire of the buyer is like.

By evaluating products and services not from the company's perspective but from the consumer's perspective, it is possible to not only clarify the cause of why they are not accepted, but also to formulate a reworked strategy to determine how to improve them to foster the desire to buy.

Benefits of Persona Marketing

The benefits of establishing personas are listed below. Each will be explained in detail.

Ability to envision the detailed needs of the customer

One of the reasons behind the establishment of personas is the emergence of diverse values. In recent years, there has been a trend toward segmentation of targets, but this alone does not cover the psychological aspects.

By setting personas' lifestyles and daily activities in concrete terms, it is possible to consider the behavioral psychology of users, such as "when," "in what situations," and "how" they would like to use the company's products and services.
In addition, it is also possible to envision specific approaches to make personas aware of your products and services, as well as the benefits they seek from your products.

Direction of marketing services will be determined.

By establishing personas, it becomes easier to determine the direction of marketing because it is possible to draw a concrete picture of what the personas want and expect from the product or service.

First, think about when and why the persona would like to use this product or service, what they feel is missing in existing similar products or services, and further imagine what points would make them smile when they find or use this product or service.

At this point, envision the reasons why the persona would choose the product, and try to put them into concrete words in terms of what kind of words you would use to communicate them to the people around you, so that the points of differentiation from other companies' products and services will become clear. Based on this, you can determine the direction of your marketing to approach the customer base that has the same needs as your persona.

Unified awareness within the company.

The biggest advantage of determining personas is the ability to unify the image of customers within the company. It is not uncommon for each department within a company to have a different image of the customer in mind, even if a specific target has been determined.

By having the same persona image for the product planning and marketing staff as well as the sales staff, there will be less discrepancies in awareness among the people involved within the company. When sharing the personas within the company, naming them and using pictures of the personas will help to create a more concrete image of the personas.

By sharing the values and psychological aspects of the personas, it is possible to consider specifics such as "Mr. 00 (persona's name) would be pleased with that" or "It does not fit the image for Mr. 00" when deciding on marketing plans and package design, thereby eliminating any blurring from product planning to sales. This eliminates any blurring from product planning to sales.

Persona Setup Procedure

There are steps to follow when actually setting up personas. To ensure the success of persona marketing, be sure to understand the steps involved.

1. analyze your company

In setting personas, start with an analysis of your company in order to reconfirm your company's strengths and attractiveness from the customer's perspective.

If you have not set personas, you tend to develop products and services from your own perspective, thinking that "if it is good, it will sell," but in setting personas, you must consider what kind of customers your products and services are valuable to. At the same time, research your customers and competitors.

A method called 3C analysis is used to understand your company's strengths, comparison with competitors, and positioning in the market. These are analyzed from the perspectives of "Customer (market/customer)," "Competitor (competitor)," and "Company (own company). The 4C Analysis, which analyzes the four factors that influence customer purchasing behavior, is also helpful and should be incorporated as necessary.

2. gather information on personas

Next, gather information about the personas you wish to attract customers. To do this, you need to clarify the image of your company's users, so analyze data on your company's existing customers from customer data, web analysis, interviews, etc.

The more sources of information you have on your company's user image, the more specific your personas can be. It is also a good idea to conduct new surveys or utilize published statistical data to learn about recent market changes and trends.

3. survey of existing customers

Once you have compiled your own customer data, gather and analyze data on the target customers of your envisioned business. In addition to the attributes, purchase data, and access history of active users within the last six months, SNS comments and surveys of event participants are also valuable sources of information. Grouping the data by product category helps to understand the differences in user attributes.

4. conducting interviews and questionnaires

Conduct questionnaires and group interviews with purchasers and inquirers of the company's products and services to gather the real voices of users. Since the purpose of the survey is to find out the realistic image of the persona, in addition to basic attribute information, it is a good idea to provide many free-writing columns and ask the respondents to describe the reasons why they made the purchase, the reasons for the purchase, and their satisfaction or dissatisfaction with the product or service.

5. access analysis of the company's website

If you have your own web media, investigate the behavior of the users who accessed your site. You can understand detailed information such as the route of inflow, which pages were accessed, and whether the user made a purchase or left the site.
Among social networking sites, Instagram Insight Analysis can help you get a more concrete picture of your users.

6. set up personas

Personas are established based on the information gathered. Specific items are as follows.

Basic information: photo, age, gender, place of residence, hometown, educational background, work history, family structure 
- Work information: industry, type of business, job title, annual salary 
- Psychological characteristics: hobbies and interests, personality, values 
- Behavioral characteristics: lifestyle, what they value, how they spend holidays, how they adopt new things 
- Information sources: newspapers, magazines, internet Magazines, use of the Internet, SNS 

When setting personas, the key point is to create a single persona based on factual data obtained from surveys as much as possible. Be conscious of building from data without preconceptions or assumptions.
Based on this information, create a story as a vivid portrait of a person. It is important to create a sense of realism that makes people say, "There is such a person, isn't there?

Points to keep in mind when setting personas

Persona creation is the key to the subsequent success or failure of the project. When actually setting up the personas, please keep the following points in mind.

Note 1: Think in large groups and based on many opinions.

It is especially important in persona setting not to work with a small group of people. When creating key user images, it is important to work with all members of the project to create them together.

Since some team members are IT designers and some are salespeople, there may be differences in the user images that are required for different tasks. In this situation, it is important to discuss and create the image based on the data to satisfy the team members, and to share the same understanding of what the final user image should be.

If this process is neglected and the project is started, there may be a gap in perception, which could delay the schedule and increase costs, so be sure to do this carefully.

Note 2: Have a rational basis.

Personas must be set with a high degree of accuracy because they narrow down the user profile to an extreme level. Layering inferences and assumptions without a rational basis may lead to a loss of accuracy. Ultimately, it is important to set up personas that seem real, so if they are far from reality, the persona setting becomes meaningless.

In order to set personas with a high degree of accuracy, it is advisable to spend some budget on research, questionnaires, interviews, etc., and build a picture of the person based on the responses.

Note 3: Take a new customer's point of view

It is very important in persona setting to determine the image of the user from a flat stance, without a strong desire to sell the company's products.

If you create personas based on the assumption of the superiority of your services, such as "people who frequently use our services are people who make value judgments about our services in this way," there is a concern that you may end up creating a persona that is far removed from the actual image of the actual consumer. However, it is also necessary to be careful not to be drawn to the characteristics of existing customers.

Overlapping existing customers with ideal users will have the effect of retaining existing users, but may not be effective in attracting new users. Failure to attract new users will hinder business expansion.

Note 4: Reconsider even once you have decided on a persona.

Even if ideal personas for a certain product have been established, real human values and social environments change on a daily basis. Failure to verify or modify the personas may result in a user image that deviates from reality, so it is necessary to reconsider even after the decision is made.

For example, in the past, the most important criteria for selecting a personal car were maximum horsepower and maximum speed. However, user attitudes have changed, and priorities in selecting a personal vehicle have shifted from maximum horsepower and maximum speed to an emphasis on fuel efficiency, an appreciation for environmentally friendly design, or whether the vehicle is a multi-purpose vehicle that families can enjoy. Therefore, it is important to choose a configuration method that is flexible enough to accommodate changing values.

Even if the best user image is the best at a given point in time, we must continue to question whether this is the right way to go, and make decisions to modify or radically redo it if gaps arise.

Persona Marketing Success Stories

Here are a few examples of successful persona marketing in action.

Calbee (coffee liqueur)

While it was generally believed that snacks would be a hit if they were designed to appeal to everyone without targeting a specific demographic, Calbee's "Jagabee" was developed by targeting "single women in their teens, 20s, and 30s," a demographic that was not considered to buy snacks based on the company's customer data, and succeeded in persona marketing.
The company's persona for "Jagabee" was set as "a 27-year-old single woman, living in Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo, who is into yoga and swimming..." Targeting only women who live alone in the city, the company designed the packaging, developed advertisements, and sold the product exclusively at convenience stores, successfully attracting the expected female customers. As a result, the company succeeded in attracting the expected number of female customers.

Reference: Nikkei Crosstec, "Creating a Big Hit Product with Self-Styled 'Persona'" 
https://xtech.nikkei.com/it/article/JIREI/20070914/282071/

Soup Stock Tokyo

Soup Stock Tokyo," a restaurant specializing in eating soup, began with a storybook created by the founder, "A Day with Soup," which was based on the image of a scene of a woman relaxing over a bowl of soup, She wants something simple and tasteful, and values functionality over ornamentation. In the pool, she swims at a crawl out of nowhere" persona was set.

We made decisions on product development, store design, and store opening areas based on whether or not she would be satisfied, and as a result, we were able to win the hearts of women with similar values and achieve great success with 52 stores in the 10 years since the company's establishment.

Reference: Subscription EC Communication, "Persona Setting in the Successful Case of Soup Stock Tokyo's 'Akino Tsuyu'" 
https://whattoeatbook.com/persona-3/

Summary

Persona-based marketing is an effective way to respond to the ever-diversifying consumer trends of individuals. However, if the personas are set up incorrectly, the desired effect may not be achieved.

Since personas are based on analysis, they may deviate from actual customers due to omissions in the analysis or changes in the market. To prevent this from happening, it is important to check the attributes and consumption trends of actual customers, review the personas, and operate them in a flexible manner.