Personas and segments working together
Have you ever experienced confusion between personas and segments? Seen segments that try to attribute customer behaviours to demographic variables? Had a client tell you that without quantification, your personas ‘lack proof’? We have!
Whilst personas are a valuable design tool, we increasingly find that our clients demand more rigour and quantifiable evidence than the small sample sizes of qualitative research can provide. We have also seen a lot of confusion between segments and personas. We set out to create clear definitions and a way for them to work with each other.
Segments are powerful in that they clearly delineate individual customers and are quantifiable. Segmentation variables can correlate to specific needs – for example, life stage and family status strongly influence financial needs. Where demographic segments are limited is that they don’t necessarily correlate to customer behaviours, attitudes or values.
Personas, on the other hand, are constructed directly from observable behaviours and associated values and goals, making them very useful for designing products, experiences and value propositions. Where personas are limited is that they are not readily quantifiable and an individual customer may exhibit characteristics of more than one persona at any time.
Using ‘behavioural markers’ alongside segmentation variables, it is possible to quantify personas against segments through surveys or analytics. This is useful when prioritising features, selecting offers for target customers or predicting the business benefits of innovations.
In this session we will introduce the model, create example personas and segments then discuss how these could be quantified.
