Online Marketing Blog

As marketers accumulate information about customers, it is also important to identify common characteristics and patterns to help guide messaging, engagement and offers.

Behaviors that contribute to your business objectives like, sales, advocacy, sharing, referrals and repeat business might contribute to your understanding of an “ideal” customer that can be characterized as a persona:

Admin Bob – Influences the CEO on software purchases and cares about price, service and speed.

Being able to identify your “best” customers also means there’s another end to the spectrum:  patterns that reflect undesirable customer behaviors and an “avoid” persona:

Gatekeeper Jane – Maintains power by filtering information to the CEO about software purchases. Cares about control, recognition and status quo.

Companies that solve different problems in different markets may determine that multiple personas best represent their target audience.

I attended University a very long time ago, where I started out pursuing Graphic Design and then transitioned to an interdepartmental degree: Sociology, Industrial Psychology and Business. Art was interesting, but I was only mildly talented and there was no digital program (this was pre-internet). As I look at the state of the social web today, I am amazed at what a dynamic and interesting time we live in. I wonder what it would be like, studying social psychology and organizational development now, with the ubiquity of the social web and transformation of internet access from PCs to mobile devices.