Personas as digital twins

What are digital twins of customers (DToC)?

Digital twins did not originally come from marketing or recruiting. They were created in the context of product lifecycle management to accurately reflect a complex physical object. The twin covers the entire life cycle of the object, is updated with real-time data and uses simulation, machine learning and logic to make decisions.

In other words, it is a virtual replica of an original. Such digital twins are mainly used in the fields of design, manufacturing, construction, operations, maintenance, architecture, healthcare and engineering to increase the efficiency of large objects and complex projects.

Digital twins simulate several scenarios and processes using current data. One example is Google Maps - a digital twin of the earth.

Thanks to the ever-increasing amount of data available, it is now possible to generate a dynamic, digital representation of customers based on real-time data: The Digital Twin of the Customer (DToC) is a virtual representation of a customer or customer group that mimics, analyzes and anticipates their customer behavior. It uses first-party data such as CRM data, shopping basket analysis and/or other consumer data sources to replicate customer experiences in a digital environment.

DToCs use analytics, AI and machine learning algorithms to create a digital version of the shopper: They provide context and predictions about future behavior and are capable of learning. With digital twins, companies can therefore predict the behavior of their customers and make decisions. Digital twins mimic customer behavior in real time to:

• optimize the entire customer journey
• personalize the marketing strategy
• Predict and avoid problems
• increase customer satisfaction and improve sales

For example, retailers using DToCs can understand what consumers expect from brands they regularly buy. Brands can then tailor products to their preferences and offer customers customized solutions. This makes a customer's digital twin something of an intelligent recommendation system. Customers will then not only enjoy the product/service, but also the shopping experience. The digital twin is particularly useful when conditions change: e.g. buying sentiment drops or falls because a crisis or boom is approaching. This allows a company to try out different possible responses without immediately making expensive and perhaps unnecessary or incorrect changes. In such cases, the digital twin can save enormous costs and prevent wrong decisions.

Developing digital twins from data-based personas

Do you not have first-party data or would you like to enrich it with answers to questions such as:

• What does a typical purchasing process look like?
• What external sources does a customer consult before making a purchase: customer reviews, price comparison portals, ...?
• Which product features are decisive for a purchase or which ones speak against it?
• Where does the customer find inspiration?
• What pains does the product / service remedy?
• Which social media or other media channels does the customer use to obtain information?

Then we at the Persona Institute can help - because: We collect data on precisely these questions and incorporate the answers into our data-driven persona .

How does a data-driven persona then become a digital twin with which you can mimic customer behavior? With our PersonaGPT solution: thanks to an interface to ChatGPT, you can chat with our data-based persona. The chatbot answers your questions from the customer's perspective, for example:

• How would we have to optimize our customer journey so that you would buy our product?
• What do you pay particular attention to when buying the product?
• What bothers you about the buying process?
• Read through the following product description and optimize it so that it is optimally tailored to your needs.

The best way to do this is to use our very comprehensive Persona GPT prompt book.

The data-based personas from the Persona Institute work on their own - i.e. without additional data from your systems - as digital twins, as well as with your data. The latter offers an optimally rounded picture, because our data basis goes beyond your customer pool: We cover a representative picture of your (potential) target group and thus provide an external picture - if we combine this with your internal view thanks to CRM data or similar, a digital twin is created that helps you optimally. Please contact us if you have any questions.