UNIQUE CODE: 06:04:45
p45_b2bAPR09 Webinnov v1.qxd:Layout 1 26/3/09 18:43 Page 45
B2BM
April 2009
≤
Go to www.b2bm.biz/digital
Website innovations
45
The personal touch
Paul Hatcher, web development director at Base One, takes a look at ‘personas’
as a tool for placing audiences at the centre of digital marketing
P
ersonas are a way of They also put the focus on motivations
Creating a persona
personalising all you know about and goals, such as user experience,
your customers and prospects, accomplishing expectations and realising How do you know how many personas you
representing a voice for your product value for the user. need? And if so, who should be targeted and
audience within your what should the primary focus be? Consider
organisation, and with your agency. It is Organisational benefits of personas the following:
also a method of making audience These are the tangible day-to-day issues
information usable, memorable and visible. that really help improve the quality of the 1. Aim. Personas should be used as part of a
Yet personas can be awkward. They work that you do: particular strategic objective. This could be a
challenge you to change the way you think product launch, website design, marketing
about your audience and how you do things, 1. Connected knowledge. Personas build a campaign or the repositioning of a brand.
they confront assumptions and prejudices. shared and agreed understanding of your There are different types of personas that you
As a result, they can be hard to embrace. audience amongst all those involved. They can create:
also help build a common understanding of • A marketing persona on how customers/
Unearthing personas who it is you are talking to, creating a focus prospects decide to purchase a product
Personas were developed from disciplines and common empathy. or service
of user research and user testing that • A design persona on how users apply
emerged to guide product design. The 2. Removes assumptions. We all think we the product or service
creation of personas came out of the need know our audience, but scratch beneath • For B2B, you can also create organisational
to distil the learning and knowledge into a the surface and a lot of our knowledge is personas, describing the story and
format that is real and easily accessible to based upon received knowledge, or attributes of the organisation you
all those in the team – from designers to assumptions. Some of this is valid, but a lot are marketing to.
product managers, marketers and so on. of it is also subjective. Assumptions are a
Personas moved out of product design and good place to start, but personas are built 2. Target. Personas will emerge at the end of
into software interface design and then upon real evidence and knowledge. the process, and usually from the research
naturally into website design, with digital you do. The methodology for this should be
agencies creating specialist teams for 3. No wishy washy. Personas aid decision- based on empirical research, of observing and
website usability and user research, making, helping us reach conclusions researching your target users, and then a
building on user-centred design (UCD) earlier and better. process of considered analysis that results in
methodologies. a persona. Getting this wrong will result in
And as the online experience is now the unrepresentative personas, which could
central hub of our marketing efforts, spell disaster.
personas have moved into marketing.
Marketers have long used ‘pen portraits’ or
‘sketches’ to help illuminate creative briefs, 4. Communicates design. Personas help to
to personify the results of user research. communicate design decisions and
What personas offer is a solid methodology solutions to stakeholders.
to create these and to release them from
the confines of a brief to be a central 5. Creative agreement. Personas build
reference point of the project. consensus and commitment around a
design or a message, achieving sign-off
Persona vs segmentation
Many of you might be wondering how
“Personas challenge you to
earlier. They also help to measure design
effectiveness in concept stages, then to
personas are different to segmentation.
change the way you think
help recruit for testing.
Segmentation is primarily about ‘us The marketing mix is more diverse and
outside, looking in’.
about your audience and how
growing faster than ever. More than ever
But to effectively communicate we need
you do things, they confront
we need to try to understand how our
to have a perspective on the ‘inside looking audience will use emerging new media, be
out’. This is where personas can help.
assumptions and prejudices”
it social media, blogs, Web 2.0, mobile, and
Personas also differ in the way your how these are appropriate and how these
audiences buy, use and interact with your
Paul Hatcher, web development director,
all fit together. Personas help with this.
product or service. Base One paul.hatcher@baseonegroup.co.uk
B2BM APRIL 09 – www.b2bm.biz
Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53