Figuratively speaking a ‘Persona’ is a combination of mood, mindset and the behavior of a visitor while he/she is browsing on the world wide web in the online buying process. We all hold different persona’s while we are looking for something, be it on the web or in physical stores. A human mind is greatly assisted in the decision making process when the setup of the store or the web resonates with his/her persona. So, for example when a couple who is about to get married and is looking for a honeymoon destination, their mood is romantic, mindset is to find a location that can become the catalyst for better romance. Now, the mind of this visitor that is in this emotional decision making process will be attracted immediately to a picture of a young couple on a lavish beach resort having dinner with the backdrop of the ocean while being served just before sunset. A tagline under the image that reads “Best value honeymoon beach resorts” would tell the cognitive mind that the picture and the words are a match on the insights profile.
What this tells a visitor is that here you can find one of the best honeymoon beach resorts and it will not burn a hole in your pocket.
While building a persona that impacts the decision making process, you must take care of the following
- The age and gender that you are targeting – if the persona does not correctly address the age and gender of the online buyer, you will not be able to attract the attention of the visitor. Some personas could be gender neutral and could address a family or a professional for example “Great Deals for Long weekend family getaways” .
- The financial commitment you are seeking – is it best value, cheap, exotic, luxury. These words create the emotional drift in decision making process and carry with them the financial commitment.
- The mood and temperament of the visitor – beach vacation, weekend break, spa break, yoga; the mood of the online buyer will find exact fitment when you add the correct mood on the persona and help with the purchasing decision.
- The completeness – the persona definition must be complete. So, “Exotic Weekend Getaway for the busy professional” gives all the above parameters.
- Search volume for your personas on the search engines – Do a correct research for your personas using the keyword analysis tool. This way, you can be assured to have a good quantum of organic visitors on the site. The keyword tool will tell you exactly what keywords online buyers are searching for before making a purchasing decision, what is the monthly search volume and what is the competition.
You should target keywords that are long tail, have low to medium competition and have a decent search volume of approximately more than 500 searches per month. - Have a dedicated landing page for each persona – Of course apart from having a great reference point on the home page, the link must lead the online buyer to a dedicated landing page in your website that satisfies the emotional decision making need with respect to the persona.
Add lots of images, write content that will build good trust and do not add any distraction on the page.
Finally, do not be too desperate for the sale. Let the persona give enough satisfaction to the online buyer about all that is being sought for. Along with some great content make sure the visitor has an opportunity to seek more information about the value proposition and help with the decision making process.
