Read this First: What is a Persona?

Personas Can Help You Identify an Audience Group and Tailor a Message for Them Specifically

You may have heard the term 'persona' used by communications and marketing professionals. It's a common tool deployed by the industry to help guide message development. A persona is a description of a particular audience group based on market research and real data.

The important difference between a demographic profile and a persona is that a persona should reflect not just an audience group's age and location, but also their behaviour patterns, motivations, and even their goals and perceptions. The more detailed it is, the better. We often say this profile should include the 'psychographic' understanding of an audience.

What are Psychographics?

Wikipedia defines psychographics as "a qualitative methodology used to describe traits of humans on psychological attributes. Psychographics have been applied to the study of personality, values, opinions, attitudes, interests, and lifestyles."

Personas provide tremendous structure and insight for organizations. These detailed profiles should help you determine where to maximize your time and energy when communicating specific issues, guide your message development, and help align your communications efforts for constituents across your community.

How Personas are Different from Demographics

Justin Trudeau and Kid Rock, for instance, have the same gender, and were born in the same year. But as personas, the two have nothing in common: they have different interests, different desires, and different behaviors.

Ready to put personas into practice? View the personas based on rural Nova Scotian communities that we've profiled here.

Personas Can Help You Identify an Audience Group and Tailor a Message for Them Specifically

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