Home » Consulting » Persona Development

Persona Development

Relevant data is important to any organization; however, relevant data does not always lead to the correct strategic decision. Organizations that do arrive at the best strategic decision based on the data are then faced with the challenge of disseminating that information in a format that promotes the desired outcomes. Whether the challenge is changing internal communication or external perceptions personas can help.

Personas put a face on data by providing a visual and oral representation of a distinct data set. Take for example the following data: Male, 35, Married, Los Angeles, 155k, Kitchen Remodel. This data does not provide much help to internal teams tasked with selling or marketing to this segment. However, convert this data into a persona and you get the following: Paul Taylor is 35 and happily married. He lives in Grenada Hills with his wife and two kids. Paul’s wife has been bugging him about getting their kitchen remodeled… Internal teams can immediately identify with Paul and know exactly who their target customer is.

The eBoost Way

We consider Personas the foundation to great marketing strategy. If you are truly going to develop a sustained competitive advantage you must look at your customer. Kenichi Ohmae posits that clients are the base of any strategy therefore your primary goal should be to your customer’s interests and not those of your shareholders. By putting customer interests first you will automatically take care of shareholder interests.

The tools used to look at customers’ interests: focus groups, case studies, analytics, blind tests, mystery shoppers, call monitor etc. all lead to one thing: a substantial amount of data. Data is typically not a problem for most organizations. The challenge is presenting the data in a way that is both meaningful and actionable. This is where the strength of personas becomes very apparent.

Personas can be created from existing internal data as well as from external sources of data. We at eBoost typically look to first utilize internal data gathered from interviewing key stakeholders within an organization. Sales staff, marketing team members and receptionists can all be great sources of first hand information on your customers. For a more comprehensive approach data gathered from internal teams can be combined with website analytics data, white papers, data from research institutions and surveys or interviews with existing and past customers.

Once the data gathering phase is complete it is time to segment the data into personas. To be effective you want to limit this to somewhere between 3-7 segments. Segments typically become apparent in the data gathering phase. Personas are then created around not only the demographics, psychographics, and topology of each segment but their unique needs, wants and demands as well. The end result is distinct segments for each persona with detailed information on that segments pain points, goals, behaviors and influencers.

The deliverable is an actual Persona bio representing a segment of data, complete with picture, name, age, and all accompanying details. Personas are accompanied by a fictional narrative that incorporates data from the segment they represent. Their pain points, goals, influencers, questions and how they make decision is all included into their persona document.

Case Study

LeonardoMD | LeonardoMD.Com

Situation

This leading practice management software company needed it website revamped and some new marketing initiatives to increase revenue and reinforce its value perception to potential clients.

Challenge

LeonardoMD relies on pay-per-lead platform services primarily to generate qualified leads, particularly medical office managers, billers, and doctors. LeonardoMD needed to make its site user-friendly for its customers to research what they need and where to find their required pieces of information.

eBoost Solution

eBoost Consulting interviewed key LeonardoMD stakeholders to receive customer insights that would help redesign the look, feel and conversion design of the website. eBoost Consulting’s partner agency utilized these data points to redesign the site to focus on the ease of use of the management software, featuring clean, simple imagery to maximize impact.
eBoost Consulting ran through a persona update one year after the initial iteration, ran through a persona-focused six-sigma process, and streamlined marketing to make it more accountable to LeonardoMD’s sales and operation functions.

The Results

LeonardoMD has seen a 646% increase in conversion rates over the past two years.