Personas for all marketing are invaluable discipline and tool so that we can understand the need states, problems and opportunities to extend service and engage.

As we dig deep we often end up with many different personas and even constructs around a persona. We build them around a variety of axis of demographics, needs, market barriers, psychographics, behaviors, desired outcome etc. This dissection of personas often leads us to great understanding of the conditions we need to develop brand experiences of all kinds and the tools and use cases that help drive the solution.

THE CHALLENGE

The challenge at times is when we end up with 4 or 5 or 6 or more user types and turning the insights defined by the multiple personas into a scalable and useful experience. As architects of experience we can struggle to find a simple way that can scale to all the needs of the users we have defined.

We can become bogged down with how these users bring their needs and issues to us. What I have found is that if we think of all communications and experiences we create as a service we can flip that thought and think about how we are finding ways to come towards our audience and trying to help users.

A SOLUTION OF PERSONALITIES

In a digital ecosystem, we are all modal in our needs and behaviors. We operate in a spectrum of the hunter and gatherer. When we are exploring for ideas or are stumped by something not in our knowledge set, we can wander and gather what we need to get to a decision point. Once we hit that point, we become task oriented, hence the hunter, and need to acquire the information or products we are looking for to complete that task. Inversely, we may think we know all of the answers entering as a hunter but discover a tip or idea that makes us pause and gather information before we continue on. 

This leads us to look at architecting a digital ecosystem that can help any consumer, regardless of who they are or how much they know or don’t know. This compels us to rethink all the personas we might find in our interchange with consumers on the web. Instead we create core archetypes of content and tools that can allow people to find three core personality types that address “who I am” and “what I may need”.

On a recent project for a decor digital eco-system we realized that our spectrum of needs for our audience really spanned three types of personalities that our site could provide embedded within the service experience. The three needs characteristics we saw:

1. KNOWLEDGEABLE NEIGHBOR:
   Think Rachel Ray. Your friendly neighbor who always has a clever shortcut or simple solution. She makes things feel easier than you thought they’d be. Smart but not snobby. She has great ideas that aren’t overly ambitious or scary. She knows what looks nice but isn’t super design focused. She just wants you to have a home you love living in. And she’ll show you how to do it in a few easy steps. 

   She’s a simplifier, not a complicater. She helps you cut through the clutter and home in on what matters to you so you can make a decision you feel good about. Low-key and understanding, she’s there if you need her but not hovering over you. 

    Stacking order of content needs:

   1. About our offering

   2. Tips and advice

   3. Inspiration and ideas

   4. Tools

   5. Product selector
       

2. MARVELOUS MENTOR: 
   Think Tim Gunn. Your charming mentor who has great advice but never preaches. He’ll give you a moment to stress over something and then tell you to make it work. And you will. He knows you can. 

   Welcoming and warm, he makes you feel good about yourself. He inspires you to get out of your comfort zone, makes choosing color an adventure and encourages you to be true to yourself. 

   He’ll clue you in on how to make risk taking seem less scary—after all. He always assures you that you know more than you think you do if you’ll just listen to your gut. He makes the project exciting and fun. 

   1. Inspiration and ideas

   2. Tips and advice

   3. Tools

   4. About our offering

   5. Product selector
       

3. COOL D-Y-ER: 
   She is the semi-hipster blogger of cool deisgn. Think Apartment Therapy meets Jezebel meets J.Crew’s Jenna Lyons meets Decor8. 

   She’s a little cooler than you are, but she makes you feel just as cool. She’s a perfect balance of aspirational and relatable. 

   She mixes high/low style, takes risks and all the stuff you wish you were confident about—and she’s happy to share all her secrets with you. Everyone is invited to this party. She’s an open book.  Chatty and funny but low-key, she makes you feel totally in the know just because you know her. 

   1. Inspiration and ideas

   2. Product selector

   3. About our offering

   4. Tools

   5. Tips and advice

PERSONALITY OF AN ECO-SYSTEM

The principles are helping us to understand where service is needed throughout the eco-system. That mapping the content strategy and organizational principles out from the site into the eco-system and then back all the way to bricks and mortar provides a better way to address our customers and their needs. 

Now we can begin to measure and adjust as we start to learn and tune the content and experience based on interest, use and in the end the center of our digital eco-system, the in-store experience.