Customer Research
Collecting Data To Build Customer Personas
The more a copywriter knows about their intended audience, the better they are able to personalise content they write so that it will resonate with them and lead to improved engagement and increased sales. Businesses can collect data that will enable them to apply The Five-Factor Model of personality traits to messaging in their content. This could be done using tools such as online personality tests, surveys and quizzes, which uses questions designed to evaluate where on a scale between high and low each individual falls for each of the five traits.
Personality Test, Quiz or Survey
The personality test, quiz or survey should feature questions that gauge where an individual falls on a scale between high and low for each of the five traits. Rather than asking people directly, this can be done using questions that allow people to choose from a range of options how they would behave in particular situations. Incentives, such as access to exclusive content, could be offered to encourage people to take part. The Big Five Personality Traits Test I created for my website features sixty questions, twelve for each of the five personality traits.
The data collected using a personality test, quiz or survey can be used to build customer profiles or personas and each customer can be placed into one of five marketing persona groups, as shown in the below example:
High Openness: Innovators, they are excited by innovative products and services, that enable them to experience something new.
High Conscientiousness: Data-driven planners, they respond to detailed reports and white papers, which provide them with verified facts.
High Agreeableness: Community builders, they respect ethical community values and look for products and services that benefit society.
High Extraversion: Engaged socialisers, they enjoy live online or real world events, engagement and interaction with a business.
High Neuroticism: Cautious decision-makers, they look for support, reassurance and low risk solutions to their problems.
Although most people are a complex mix of the five personality traits, each of us tends towards dominant traits. For each form of marketing communications a version can be crafted, so that the version an individual receives is designed to appeal to their dominant trait. Using demographic data and onsite analytics the messaging can be further personalised. For example, while highly conscientious customers would receive email newsletters featuring data-driven information, those high in agreeability will receive a newsletter highlighting human interest stories and those high in openness receive news about cutting edge technology.
Many businesses use content management system (CMS) software to build and manage their website and customer relationship management (CRM) software to track customer leads and interactions with the website and store data. Based upon preferences, personalised content shown to result in engagement and sales can be displayed. Performance metrics, including email open, click through and conversion rates can be measured, along with onsite tracking, to optimise digital marketing strategies. For example, when users are logged in to a website, their actions, such as downloading a report, watching a video, or reading a particular article, before completing a call to action (CTA), could be tracked.