Decisive difference: personas vs. roles

 

 

Imagine you could predict the behavior of your customers in different social contexts, precisely identify their needs and behavioral patterns and develop tailored campaigns based on this. If you understand how roles and personas differ, this becomes possible. Here you can read what exactly is behind the term "role", what the difference is between a role and a persona and how you can use both effectively in your marketing.

What is a roll?

Roles help to explain and understand human behavior in a social context. They provide a framework to simplify and make tangible the complexity of human interactions in different environments - be it in companies, in the family or in other social groups. They are linked to certain expectations and behaviors.

A distinction is made between ...

• professional roles such as teacher or sales manager and
• private roles such as boyfriend or mother.

Professional roles and skill-based recruiting

There are usually clear role descriptions for professional roles - so-called "job descriptions": What are the tasks that the job entails? Who does the person doing the job report to? Who do they represent and who do they represent? What skills are associated with the job? Which ones are required? Which ones can be learned on the job? Companies that work with such job profiles often focus on skill-based recruiting.

Skills-based recruiting refers to an approach to recruitment that focuses on the specific skills and competencies of candidates, rather than primarily on traditional qualifications such as education or previous work experience. In this approach, candidates are selected based on their skills and potential for a specific position, rather than just their professional background.

Skills-based recruiting can include various methods and technologies to assess candidates' skills, including:

1. Skill assessments: tests or tasks that measure candidates' skills and competencies in relevant areas
2. Data-Driven Recruiting: Using data analytics to identify the best candidates based on their skills and performance
3. AI-powered screening tools: Artificial intelligence (AI) can be used to automatically scan CVs and applications and identify candidates with the required skills. But beware: Screening by AI tools can facilitate the pre-selection of a large number of applications, but cannot replace screening by experienced recruiters.
4. Personal interviews and case studies: To assess candidates' skills more accurately, interviews and case studies can be used to test their practical skills and expertise.

Skills-based recruiting allows companies to focus on the skills and potential of candidates. This can help build more diverse and high-performing teams and improve adaptability to changing business needs.

The process of skill-based recruiting often looks like this:

1. Application and confirmation of receipt with an indication of the further process.
2. HR checks for role and skill fit.
3. If the match is good, there will be an introductory meeting.
4. Trial work: Professional qualifications are one thing, cultural fit is another. And this is exactly what the trial work is all about: eight to 16 hours are spent working together in a team to check whether "the chemistry is right".
5. Moderated feedback round: HR conducts a feedback round with everyone who has been in contact with the candidate to hear all perspectives and make a coherent hiring decision based on them.

If an organization works in a completely skill-based and agile way, people can be deployed according to their knowledge and skills. Practical example:

Private roles

In contrast, private roles are more flexible. How exactly they are structured is not fixed and is constantly being negotiated. Generally speaking, if roles are less clearly defined, there is more room for individual interpretation and negotiation.

In sociological terms, a social role is a set of behavioral rules that are objective and independent of the individual. This means that roles are not defined and changed by individuals, but by society as a whole. They are associated with binding expectations that cannot simply be ignored. Because if you deviate from the expectations associated with a role, sanctions can follow.

But it is anything but easy to meet different expectations. One example: the role of parents. They are expected to raise and support their children. At the same time, they also have to fulfill their role at work or as a partner. If different groups have contradictory expectations of a person, role conflicts can arise. These manifest themselves in the form of conflicts, tensions and insecurities, for example.

Roles in marketing

In the marketing context, the term "role" is used to describe the behavior and expectations of people in certain positions or contexts. They influence advertising strategies and the way customers are addressed, for example. The reason: if you understand the roles of your target groups, you can address them in a more targeted way.

In summary, it can be said that roles help to make human behavior predictable and understandable. They are a key concept for understanding the dynamics between individuals and society as well as between customers and companies.

But don't personas also make it possible to address specific target groups? To understand how personas and roles differ, the next step is to define what personas are.

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What is a persona?

Personas summarize a variety of characteristics, including demographic data, behavioral patterns, preferences, needs and goals. This creates detailed profiles that help to develop a deep understanding of the motivations and challenges of the target group. And this in turn enables the development of targeted and effective marketing strategies and product solutions.

The advantages of personas:

• They illustrate in detail who the users or customers are, what they need, and how they think and act.
• They enable companies to tailor offers and messages precisely to the specific requirements and expectations of their target groups.

Experts distinguish between two different types of persona. Proto-personas are based on qualitative, i.e. non-standardized, data such as observations, empirical values and interview transcripts. In contrast, data-driven personas are created on the basis of careful evaluations of measurable, numerical data - for example, usage data, costs and sales.

If these evaluations are brought together on a persona sedcard and presented in an understandable way, a detailed and clear overall picture is created. This makes it easier for companies to understand customer segments and, based on this, to tailor products, services and communication strategies optimally to the needs of their target groups.

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Persona or role: when do you need what?

What enables more targeted marketing - roles or personas? The answer to this question depends on the individual goals and requirements of a project.

Roles are used to explain and understand human behavior in social contexts. In contrast to roles, personas capture finer details and nuances that characterize a specific group of users or customers. Personas aim to bring specific customer groups or target groups to life and make them tangible. They illustrate who the users or customers are and capture their needs, behavioral patterns and goals.

In practice, both roles and personas can be used effectively. When it comes to understanding and explaining human behavior in social contexts, clarity about roles is important first. Personas build on understandings of roles. They help to capture the needs, behavioral patterns and goals of the target groups.

They are therefore the better choice if the aim is to understand specific customer groups in depth, address target groups precisely and design or adapt offers accordingly. A combination of both approaches can also be useful in order to gain a comprehensive understanding of the target groups and align marketing strategies accordingly.

Origins in software development: The history of buyer personas

Applied to marketing approaches, the following differences can be identified in the use of roles vs. personas: 

Role-based marketing

• Target group approach: Focuses on the specific roles or functions within an organization. This approach is often used in B2B marketing, where purchasing decisions depend on the functions and responsibilities of people in their professional roles.
• Communication: The marketing messages and content are tailored to the specific needs, challenges and goals associated with the professional roles of the target group. For example, different messages could be developed for IT managers, finance managers and managing directors.
• Advantages: Enables precise targeting of decision makers and influencers within an organization. It improves the relevance of communication by addressing the specific needs and interests based on the job role.
• Challenges: Requires detailed knowledge of the different roles within the target industries and how these roles influence the buying process.

Persona-based marketing

• Target group approach: Focuses on the creation of buyer personas, which are data-based representations of prototypical customers. These personas are created through market research and data about the existing customer base.
• Communication: The content and marketing messages are created to resonate with the specific interests, needs, preferences and behaviors of the personas created. This approach is used in both B2B and B2C marketing.
• Benefits: Enables a deeper emotional connection with the target audience by providing more personalized and tailored marketing messages. It takes into account a wider range of influencers that can affect purchasing behavior, including personal preferences and lifestyle.
• Challenges: Requires extensive research and data analysis to create accurate and useful personas. Effectiveness can be affected by changes in the market or target group.

Personas vs. roles: All information at a glance

In summary, the following points are important with regard to personas and roles:

• Roles explain human behavior in social contexts and are based on social expectations of behavior.
• Personas offer detailed insights into specific customer groups.
• data-driven personas are detailed profiles that represent specific customer groups or target groups.
• The decision between roles and personas depends on the goals and requirements of the project.

It is crucial for the success of marketing campaigns that companies know and understand their target groups precisely. The choice between roles and personas should be based on a well-founded analysis of the specific requirements and expectations. This is the only way to optimally tailor your offers and messages to the needs of your target groups and achieve long-term success. The Persona Institute is an expert in the creation of data-based personas. Let us advise you or find out more about our various services.