data-driven personas in performance marketing

How personas help in performance marketing

Personas facilitate effective targeting. After all, targeting requires the clearest possible understanding of the target group and the company's own goals. With data-based personas, target groups can be characterized in concrete terms. What interests does a typical target group representative have? What needs, what desires, but also what worries occupy him/her? Personas can do even more: For successful marketing, tonality is crucial. To achieve this, it is not enough to develop specific strategies based on socio-demographic characteristics, such as age, income or profession. A holistic understanding of the target group is required. data-driven personas delivers just that, thanks to an authentic picture of the target group.

Example: There's Max, who is open-minded, humorous, supports justice in climate protection and loves listening to crime podcasts. Further details are:

Max Stiglhöfer

General:

• Age: 29
• Marital status: single
• Residence: Munich
• Flat: Old building rental flat
• Children: none
• Education: Geography studies
• Job: Research assistant
• Income: 45,000 euros/year

Lifestyle:

• Hobbies: Spending time with friends
• Leisure activities: Team sports (football, twice a week)
• Car: without, but cargo bike
• Clothing style: secondhand, vegan materials
• Home furnishings: furniture with eco-label for sustainable use of resources
• Nutrition: vegan organic food, regionally produced, fair trade label
• Type and circle of friends: open, humorous, likes to go to music events with friends
• Online behaviour: Mainly uses Instagram and follows accounts like Greenpeace, Robin Wood and Stiftung Regenwald erhalten e.V.
• Sport: Active football, Bayern Munich fan

Claims:

• Quality: Products must be practical and comply with environmental standards
• Comfort: rather less important
• Self-representation: rather low
• Safety awareness: moderately pronounced
• Adventure wish: Save the world

Other:

• Apps: Uses time management apps like Google Calendar
• Relation to the product: So far only through indirect contact (online advertising seen).

There is Susanne, who likes to skateboard in everyday life and has recognised freedom as an important value for her. She is extroverted, likes to watch cooking videos on YouTube and volunteers at the animal shelter to take care of abandoned dogs. Further data-based details could now be listed just like for Max (general, lifestyle, demands as well as other).

With these target group descriptions, you can easily develop a suitable marketing strategy. You know exactly which platform, which content and which style will go down well. For Max, for example, your text is more fact-oriented and sober, while Susanne can be addressed more emotionally and needs little stories instead of facts.

For example, with Google Ads, the challenge of launching a successful campaign is quite demanding. First of all, it's about the target group - how is it described and which advertising approach suits it? With personas, it is clear what headline a Google Ad should have, what content will excite the target group and, above all, what keywords the campaign should use. This increases the effectiveness of targeting and allows financial resources to be used as efficiently as possible.

What personas have to do with targeting

Personas help to deploy marketing resources as specifically as possible where they will have the best effect. Targeting is particularly effective when the understanding of the target group is as authentic as possible. This includes giving an exemplary target group representative a face, a name, demographic details, interests, behavioral characteristics, goals, details on motivation, problems of the target group, and everyday media habits. So far so good. In practice, this means that different personas can or even must be used for different campaigns.

With personas to the perfect ad

An important advantage of personas is that professional targeting not only allows you to address specific target group representatives, but also a so-called lookalike audience. This means that extended target groups can be addressed on the basis of similarity to the core target group. Target groups that had not even been thought of before, but which become visible through the use of personas.

Suitable advertising texts

Marketing campaigns need resources. However, practice shows: marketing campaigns with personas require significantly fewer resources. Due to the exemplary target group representatives, advertising texts can be formulated much faster. At the same time, one saves costs in text creation, since fewer workers are occupied with text creation. And you achieve a better conversion rate. The target group feels better understood and is more likely to buy a product or use a service as a result.

Take Max, for example: We know that he is interested in sports, especially football. We also know that he likes humour and would love to save the world. With these two details alone, you can steer the copytexts in a certain direction.

Precise imagery

In addition to the advantages in text creation, advantages can also be realised in the creation of visual messages. Often, unnecessary time is wasted in the design process of advertisements if the specifications for graphics and design are rather imprecise. Personas allow clarity in the briefing and less time is needed to design the visual language. Furthermore, misunderstandings can be avoided or at least reduced. The target group does not look at the ad and wonder what it means. No, the target group understands the ad at first glance. Finally, when designing the imagery, a much better, much more authentic connection to the product or service can be established. Thanks to the personas, you know which preferences already exist for the brand. As a result, the brand can be integrated much more easily in the creation of graphics and design.

Example Max: We know that he is interested in secondhand clothing on a vegan basis as well as a vegan lifestyle in general. He also supports Greenpeace. With this information alone, you can make the imagery very concrete.

The top 4 practical insights

1. Personas make targeting easier and more effective: lookalike audiences are created in just a few clicks, the data-driven personas as the main target group is quickly created, without any guesswork or gut feeling. The scourge principle with large wastage is a thing of the past!
2. Data-based personas enable an authentic understanding of the target group - the basis for target group-specific copy texts.
3. Thevisual language of ads can be optimised thanks to data-based personas, because: you know what the target group wants to see.
4. data-driven personas help to save costs and effort in marketing: Precisely fitting briefings without misunderstandings and clear copies thanks to a well-founded target group picture. You know exactly what your customers want. This is how Customer Centricity works.