Marketingblatt

Why Negative Personas Improve Your Marketing

Written by W4 | Apr 20, 2018 3:21:02 PM

Persona Marketing has become commonplace in many companies: user models are created with which businesses can characterize certain target groups. Subsequently, marketing activities based on these models can be tailored to specific target groups. Creating a negative persona can also provide valuable insights for your marketing strategy.

What is a negative persona?

Creating a negative persona is, to a certain extent, the opposite of creating buyer personas. It is therefore the model of a user who does not want to buy a product or service, does not believe in the offer and its usefulness, may has already sought out information from the competition, is not willing to make compromises or has already voiced complaints.

Why create a negative persona?

Knowing your enemies enables you defeat them. Negative personas can make potential areas of optimization visible. Knowing what discourages potential customers from buying a product or which compromises they are unwilling to make as well as becoming aware of the areas in which the competition outperforms your business can help you to improve your marketing. Furthermore, you can also save time and money by knowing the type of person that is not going to take your offers. This enables you to concentrate your resources on your target group instead. A negative persona can be identified when taking into account the following aspects:

  • A person is not in the immediate vicinity of the enterprise (applies to local stores, not online shops)
  • Customer acquisition would be more expensive than the potential revenue
  • A potential customer expects concessions you do not want to make
  • A person does not have the financial means or is unwilling to spend money
  • A person has a clear preference for competing brands

Keeping these aspects in mind, marketers can define buyer personas more precisely for a much more effective lead nurturing process.

How to create a negative persona?

First of all, you have to find people willing to be interviewed. That might be customers who have bought from you only once, people who follow your social media channels but have never purchased anything or customers who have expressed complaints.

Interviews are the best way to arrive at a definition of a negative person. However, an online form on the website might also be of help, although you have to find a way to activate people to visit your website and fill it out first.
Read more: Content Marketing.