Persona Development – An Update

In this great post from Perianne Grignon of [x + 1], she argues that the concept of media is dead, saying “obviously at one level – as a means for reaching the right audiences with relevant messages – the answer is “yes”. But if you’re still thinking of media as an array of discreet channels that need to be individually planned for, bought, optimized and managed, the answer needs to be a loud and emphatic “no.”

At Pluris, we wholeheartedly agree with this message.  Our Offer Optimization solution runs across all channels, and its goal is to deliver a consistent message to each consumer regardless of channel.  About a year ago, we posted our thinking on personas as a means to provide “color” to statistics. 

After a year of engaging several major brands in the development of strategic personas, our thinking has only crystallized.

In our approach, we focus on behavior, and not just purchase behavior, but marketing content consumption itself.  Every time a brand sends an email, or creates a social media post, or supplies any digital content, consumers have the opportunity to consume and react to that content, or not.  By analyzing the meta data of that content – what products were in it at what price points and what messaging was used – we can determine a lot about a brand’s customers in terms of what they are interested in and what their intentions with the brand are.

Only through detailed statistical analysis of content consumption can a true consumer persona be developed, one that differentiates, on a strategic level, what causes that persona to be engaged with a brand, or conversely, to be turned off by a brand’s repetitive blast of undifferentiated content into crowded inboxes.  In an omni-channel world, differentiated content is king.