Blindly focusing on demographic data is an example of this. Based on customer data, you might say that 70% of the people who buy a certain product are white men over sixty, with an average income. And that half of them drive a Peugeot. This can then become the basis of a persona.
But is that of any use? Shouldn't you look at the why , the underlying motivation and the use? And doesn't that perspective help us to think more 'openly' about customer groups and simply reproduce 'certainties'? Perhaps some of the men, in their use of the product or in their attitude and behaviour, are more in line with a completely different demographic segment. Therefore, always compare the different perspectives, be critical and dare to make choices. Because, as Boudewijn wrote in his previous article: 'fact-based' is not by definition 'judgment-free'. Prejudices often creep in when reproducing categories.
Also read: Introducing a new way of working in your organization? Use personas
Fact-based is not necessarily 'judgment-free': beware of reproducing prejudices.
The art of omission
So one strategy to deal with diversity in your customer representation is to be selective in what you show in a customer profile or persona. We often think of a persona as a real person. Of course, that’s because the goal of a persona is to evoke empathy and identification. But that can also be done without a photo, without a gender, and certainly without an ethnicity or religion.
So be selective with demographic uae telegram data segmentation, even though it may give you a sense of security. Rather focus on the motivation, needs, attitude or emotion of a group. That which is really important.
'Your persona should match your audience', or not?
A golden rule in persona building is (normally) that the personas you create match the customer base. If it's not diverse, you shouldn't want to make it diverse. At its core, persona building, and working with these fictional customers, is about recognition and acknowledgement .
A company that has more than 80% white, highly educated, above-average earning male customers is done with personas that look exactly like that. Well. That feels limiting too. Such a set of white personas may be proportionally representative, but it also has a blinding effect. You will not tap into new customer groups with it, because you are focusing on the dominant middle group or majority of your users.
From rapid recognition to awareness
This is precisely, we think, a problem that you could turn around. So what if we do it the other way around? What if we make personas more diverse than the customer base? That we don't follow the data 1-on-1, but make a conscious choice to deviate from it.
