The Holodeck | Personas Are Cool

For this week’s post, I get to do my favorite thing . . . tap into my creative side! (Fine. It’s technically not my very favorite thing, but it’s right up there with the things that make my insides do the happy dance.)

I posted about personas here and here – the latter of which I humbly love because Stubborn Sam amuses me and I’m all over Savvy Sally’s super cute look. The glasses, the hairdo, the tone-on-tone situation, and the look on her face that tells you she’s not easily amused and that you probably shouldn’t piss her off. Love that girl. This week, we’re creating personas for The Holodeck!

But, first, allow me to remind you why personas matter. Any business with hopes of marketing to the right customer does their due diligence by researching who their customer is, what they want, why they want it, when they want it, where they’d learn about it, and how they’d buy it. [The five that drive, baby! (And one bonus H.) It’s a marketing term. I’m not gonna lie that I’m feeling pretty dang cool for dropping a Day 1 highlight from Principles of Marketing right now. I’m just sayin’ that you should probably pass the gold star.)

This research results in endless pages of data that narrows in on who that magical customer is (and isn’t). However, data is apparently boring to most people, so personas take that black and white data (which I technically also love) and morphs it into a colorfully creative world. I picture these itty-bitty droplets of numbers and letters lifting off the page and magically forming a person we can understand and relate to.

These puppies not only answer the questions that your data was seeking – in a gloriously streamlined and pretty little way – but, personas help everyone within your company understand who your customer is and why they matter. Cohesivity, people. I don’t know if that’s a word, but I’m goin’ with it. I love me some cohesivity.

[For the record, I think the data is super interesting, too. I’m one of those weirdo right brain/left brain people. Love the numbers stuff. Love the creative stuff. I feel it’s my duty to give the ugly stepchild of marketing the props it deserves. Without the data, a persona would be an overwhelming blank page of nothingness. Take that, right brain creativity. (Although, I seriously do love you, too. It’s a really complicated relationship.)]

For the theoretical family fun center, The Holodeck, our target markets are teenagers and parents of littles. Everyone in our Digital Marketing class was tasked with interviewing someone from each desired target. From there, we were able to analyze the overall data and create personas in order to bring these two targets to life for anyone who might have a hand in promoting the business.

Meet Teenaged Tim and Super Mom Mary.

Teenaged Tim is a 15-year-old high schooler who lives at home with his family and doesn’t have a ton of fundage considering his job in life is being an amazing student and an awesome son and brother. However, he does have a little bit of money from odd jobs and his weekly allowance, which he prefers to spend on arcade games and hanging out with friends. Hello, you perfect target you.

[Real question. Is an allowance still a thing? I used to get like $2 for being the household maid back in the day . . . which wasn’t exactly yesterday. I didn’t give my own child (who is now 20) an allowance. I just bought him things. Why? Because I was the best mother ever, thank you. I digress.]

Super Mom Mary is a 35-year-old stay-at-home mama to her two little kiddos, as well as a wife to a husband who should bow down to her in a very big way. Like, seriously. Get on your knees and be grateful for this woman. He might bring home the bacon (which is delicious, PS), however she holds this family together. She’s educated, but chose the hardest job on the planet by devoting all energy to raising their children. Because of this, they have limited discretionary income, however she’ll gladly spend a chunk of their budget on getting those kids out of the house and maintaining what little sanity she has left. Raising kids is hard, dude. I did it. As a single mother, thank you very much. Moms rule the world. You should probably go tell yours you love her. Even if she’s in Heaven like mine. She’ll hear you. Now go. Give your mom some love. The Super Mom Marys out there deserve it. Go Moms!