Personas and the Big Five model

Segmenting target groups makes sense and the marketing world is full of different ways to do it. Whereas in the past it was mainly about demographics, today market research combines demographic, psychographic and behavioral data to gain a comprehensive understanding of consumers. This allows companies to learn who buys, or doesn't buy, what and why.

A great deal of psychology is involved in purchasing decisions or even decisions by candidates for or against this or that job: How someone reacts comes down to her or his personality. According to the American Psychological Association, the term personality refers to "the enduring characteristics and behaviors that make up a person's unique adaptation to life, including key traits, interests, drives, values, self-concept, abilities, and emotional patterns". Simply put, it is the combination of a person's enduring characteristics and behaviors that often determines how they adapt to their environment.

A scientifically well-documented model of our personality is the "Big Five", the five personality traits:

• Compatibility

• Conscientiousness

• Openness

• Extraversion

• Neuroticism

Each personality trait has three important characteristics:

• Consistency in different situations

• Stability over time and age

• Individual differences between people

Each of us has all of these characteristics, but to varying degrees. That is why they are shown as a network diagram:

No one is "only open" or "only conscientious". But which of these traits is particularly pronounced in us determines our character: people who are particularly agreeable are very consensus-oriented, while someone who is conscientious stands out as "meticulous" or "well-organized". Extroverts are good at approaching others. Neurotic people tend to be cautious and risk-averse, while people with a pronounced openness like to try out new things.

Although our personas are not real people, they also have the five personality traits in varying degrees. If you know the characteristics of your buyer-candidate persona, you can develop a tailor-made communication strategy for your ideal customers and ideal candidates. Based on this, you can deduce how desired customers or desired candidates will behave in a certain situation, what they want and what they shy away from; how to approach them and where and what is "wasted effort". In short: you can send a persona whose personality traits you know on the perfect customer or candidate journey.

Different feature - different purchasing behavior

The personality traits of buyer personas include group-level behavioral patterns that can be used to infer how buyers interact and behave in the marketplace. Studies have found a close correlation between the Big Five personality traits and brand preferences, impulsive buying and even political behavior.

For example, consumers and data-based buyer personas with the primary personality trait of "agreeableness" tend to prefer products that match their harmony-oriented values and rely on word of mouth and customer recommendations.
Conscientious customers prefer established brands that are known for their quality and do thorough research before buying a product. If they are convinced by a product, they remain loyal to the brand for a long time. In contrast, customers with the outstanding personality trait "openness" like to try out new brands and are receptive to futuristic technologies and avant-garde trends - exactly the right target group for an unusual product idea. People with a neurotic disposition shy away from risks - this also applies to shopping. They are therefore reluctant to try out new products and tend to go for tried and tested ones, as this gives them a sense of control and security and makes them more likely to avoid a negative product experience.
It is precisely the thrill of the thrill that makes extroverted people make impulse purchases. Clever marketing with appealing, preferably interactive buying experiences can score points with this group and keep the cash register ringing.

Using personas with personality traits for HR

Just as customers with different personality traits prefer different purchasing experiences or brands and marketers can use this information to "knit" the right customer journey for each one, recruiters or team leaders can also use candidate personas equipped with personality traits to not only recruit successfully, but also to set up the team optimally:

This starts with creating the right job ads for the right candidate personas. The target group may have the same demographics, BUT: A conscientious persona will be happy to read a long job ad with detailed information about the company. A candidate with a low level of conscientiousness is more likely to be put off by such an ad. They prefer relevant information in bullet points and would rather clarify the rest in an interview, if they are interested at all. In order to get any applications at all, it is not enough to know that I would like to address young computer scientists with this and this specialty and a maximum of two years of professional experience or bankers with many years of experience in customer service. You need data-driven personas to know exactly what makes your ideal candidates tick and what they would like to read in which design: Studies have shown that extroverted people respond well to strong colors, while introverted people are attracted to a more unexcited layout.

Once you have received applications, it's on to the interviews. In order to be successful in today's job market, you not only need to know which approach and tone of voice are appropriate, but also which topics appeal to the respective persona. Introverts may need an icebreaker. Open-minded people are likely to want to talk about challenges and upcoming projects, while agreeable people are interested in internal processes and extroverts would prefer to get to know the team straight away.
This also applies to staff appraisals in general: Neurotics are best approached with unemotional topics about specialist knowledge, while agreeable people can be asked about the mood in the team.

It's not just the HR department that can use the personality traits of the candidate personas to address candidates correctly; team leaders can also benefit in their day-to-day work if the candidate has taken the bait: colleagues often need advice from each other, work together or tasks need to be distributed. But not everyone feels comfortable with the same type of contact: an extroverted employee will be happy to receive a call from the other floor, while others will feel disturbed and lose their flow. They prefer to receive an email. Conscientious people would like to be briefed in detail or read through the instructions for a new program at their leisure, while open-minded employees want to try it out for themselves and anxious/neurotic people prefer to have an expert show them how to do it.

A shy or neurotic employee at the trade fair stand is probably not a good idea, even if she is technically excellent. On the other hand, an extroverted colleague who perhaps needs to catch up professionally but wins over all customers with his charming manner would be out of place in the back office. Conversely, the two form a dream team. Companies that use data-driven personas with personality traits in recruitment and inform all those involved about this not only find the right people, but can also offer them the best possible onboarding and assign them the most suitable tasks. This guarantees that the whole team feels comfortable and develops a high level of loyalty.

Our data-based personas delve deep into the emotions of our customers' ideal customers and ideal candidates. In this way, they help to create successful customer and candidate journeys.