Page 14 - AeM_Oct_2018

RESEARCH, ANALYSIS & TRENDS

The emotional decision frameworks of

Personas are good for automation

As commonly known, personas are the basis for the right factors. If the customer’s gut feeling then tips the scale,
classification of customers in online shops to he acts absolutely rational.
consequently deliver appropriate campaigns and offers. Behavioral psychology does not get tired of
Generally, five to ten archetypes of buyers must be demonstrating that contextual conditions influence our
profiled and the communication, product presentation decision-making principles.
and possibly also the prices must be adapted to them
accordingly. The surfing and click behavior, length of Scarcity is providing a classic experiment: If you are
stay, main topics, products that are put into the shopping offering customers the same, abundant number of
cart and - in the case of a log-in - also historical everyday commodities to buy, but limit the number of
transaction data can be used as parameters for the allowed purchases in a group of test persons, it is very
classification. likely that this group buys more items of the product.
Purchase decisions can also get accelerated with some
Although the concept of the personas is by now 20 years tricks: For instance, Booking.com compares the traffic
old, speakers are surprisingly still getting admired when on a hotel page to the number of available rooms. The
describing this form of audience clustering, mainly trick is that the traffic is independent of a date, but the
because good personas are emotional beings. They number of rooms is not. In this respect, six people
differ from the classical homo economicus in making gut might look at the hotel, in which there are only four
decisions that are supposedly irrational and therefore cheap rooms, but the probability that they book at the
hardly predictable for the provider.
same time as the individual viewer is extremely low.
Well, supposedly, because even the purist economist Nevertheless, there is the unpleasant feeling of being
will not place absolute product or price characteristics, able to miss out on a good opportunity.
but relative at the center of the buying decision. Which If someone wants to convert such insights into an
product at which price promises the greatest benefit or optimization concept for a marketing campaign or an
the greatest pleasure gain, are usually the decisive
online shop, it clearly needs a structuring.

14 October 2018 - Personalized & Customer-Centric Content Marketing