Move Towards Social CRM with MSI Persona Value Clusters

Social CRM integrates your social, community, web, and integrated marketing programs into a single, powerful marketing weapon.  Persona Value Segmentation from Marketing Synergy uses proven analytical techniques to deeply understand and value the unique markets visiting all of your marketing programs and create strategies to attract, engage, database, and sell them.  It moves your social, web, digital and other programs from an unmeasrable invest to a testable, measurable, and continually monitored component in your CRM program. 

Integrated marketers are experts at using past purchase behaviors and secondary data - demographic, psychographic, lifestyle, life stage, and commercial clustering systems - to define and value their markets.  While these analyses were useful in a world where marketers controlled the entire marketing process, in the world of the web and social media, they are not enough.  The big difference between web and social and integrated marketing is that web and social individuals are already motivated to action.  They recognize their needs / wants, are triggered to search or interact with communities and are driven to spend some of their resources [time, effort, etc.] to address their problem.  Drives, triggers, and sources of expertise they will use to address their needs are what is critical to grabbing, interacting, and converting these motivated prospects into customers....and NONE of these elements can be determined using overlay data, database information, or traditional integrated marketing analytical techniques.

What you need to succeed in the social and web markets is a persona clustering system.

 

Today we are defined by much more than our demographic & household characteristics

A persona value cluster is a market segment defined - not by demographics - but by the event triggers, drive mechanisms & sources of expertise which move them to action.  Each persona segment is developed and analyzed by MSI marketing specialists to provide you with the following measures & marketing capabilities:

  1. Creation of the persona representative & a "rich" description of the segment - To effectively market or design web mini-sites for your high value persona segments, you need to understand the characteristics which makes them unique.  The MSI Persona project will analyze each persona market to identify the demographic, lifestyle, needs, triggers, time between initial interest & purchase, purchase steps and other factors which define & allow you to effectively connect with each persona group.  We provide you with insights into how and where they seek expertise to make their purchase decisions, what media they use to find information on your products & services, where they seek connection with other members of their community, and complete demographic & lifestyle descriptions to most effectively create web & marketing programs & develop acquisition channels to connect with them and move them to action.

  2. Projections of lifetime value & market share - Each persona segment is also evaluated in terms of the revenues they are likely to produce for you over time & what share of the marketplace you currently "own".  This allows you to focus on the persona segments of highest value or highest growth potential for your company.  Combined with the information you will develop on their cruising patterns & social community interests, you have the tools and the knowledge to find and develop the highest potential market segments to drive your business to new heights.

  3. Persona Purchasing Lifecycle - Each persona segment is likely to purchase your products and services differently.  In an MSI persona segmentation project, we examine the ways each segment purchases products to allow you to structure your marketing and web communications programs to offer them the right product at the right time.

  4. Web Cruising Patterns & Web Needs - For each persona segment, we develop their cruising patterns as they search the web, blogs, and community sites to find information about your industry, your company, and your products & services.  In addition, we compare their needs, wants, and triggers requirements to your current web site to identify "gaps" you need to address to best serve your high value / high potential persona markets.

  5. Product Propensities - In the persona segmentation, we can evaluate other products considered and purchased when the persona member purchases yours.  This gives you another acquisition strategy you can develop through partnerships.

  6. Preferred market channels & contact strategies - Connecting with different persona segments can be difficult if you don't understand their preferred contact channels and the timings between their developing an need or want and purchase.  In our persona segmentation, we examine each persona segment to determine the best ways and times to communicate your offer to them and the specific messages which would best address their needs, wants & desires.

  7. New product development Needs & Insights - Many persona segments are always looking for the "newest" and "best" ways to address their needs.  These are the innovators which both aggressively purchase your new products but are frequently experts sought by other persona members for advice.  They are the people you need in your design process to assist you in developing your new products.  In the persona development effort, we identify the thought leaders in each persona segment & identify the segments most likely to aggressively pursue new products.

     

 

Key Questions about Persona Value Clusters

How does MSI develop Persona Value Clustering Systems?

 

A persona value clustering system is a "tour de force" of marketing analytics techniques and methodologies.  It is the culmination of over 10 years of development effort by MSI for clients starting with cutting edge work with AOL at the beginning of the internet. 

Creating persona value clusters uses web survey methodologies to gather key insights into your customers & web visitors and their cruising activities.  We can also deploy the same survey to nationally representative populations to show your markets of highest value and opportunity markets you may be missing.

In analyzing the survey results [which are also overlaid with demographic, lifestyle, lifestage, psychographic, and other data], we use factor analyses to determine internal/external drive motivations, principal component and cluster analyses to build the value clusters and lifetime value forecasts and analyses to define each cluster in terms of its overall value to your organization.  Each cluster is then statistically profiled using over 200 database and descriptive elements to build your final persona value cluster system.

What is the purpose for the web survey of site visitors and customers?

While descriptive profiles can tell us about the lifestyles, life stages, and demographic characteristics which define our customerbase [or SIC, business type and title data for B2B applications], they do not examine the key determiniants to why we initiate cruise activities on the web or how aggressively we become part of a community.  These are our triggers to actions and the nature and strength of our drive mechanisms.  It is these two compoents which is the focus of the web survey of site visitors, database customers, and community visitors. 

Triggers are the events in our lives which move us to action on the internet.  It may be an external trigger [the engine stopping on our car makes us seek a mechanic] or internal [our insistance we maintenance the car every 5,000 miles makes us seek a mechanic].  For each triggering event, we have found people will have a set time they will allow to searching, interacting, and the purchasing their solution.  The web survey is vital because it collects the data we can use to "unearth" and better understand these triggering events.

Drive mechanisms are also important and can only be discovered through a survey process.  For any need or want, how we seek the solution, the amount of effort we will employ, and the frequency with which we will explore options is heavily dependent on the nature and strength of our drive mechanisms.  For almost any product or service, there are those who are deeply driven to become part of a community, others who are really interested but not driven, and those who can be pursuaded to become a part of a community but only for a short time.  For example, if you look at followers of TV shows like Top Chef there are people who post on their blogs and are constantly a part of the cooking community, others who are active while the new shows are on and still others who watch and may visit the site a few times.  We use the web survey and statistican analyses to determine the drive mechanisms, their source [internal vs external] and their frequency to understand the value of these differently driven groups.

What outputs are created from the web survey?

From the web survey, MSI uses factor analysis to first determine the importance your product/service plays in an individual's life.  We determine if it is internally or externally driven, whether it is extemely important or not, and if a need is created sole due to external factors.  These insights are used in creating the persona clusters.  Second, the survey identifies and quantifies the triggers which move an individual to action.   Third, they provide key insights on the following behaviors:

  • What is the nature of their drive mechanisms?  - Internal or external, solo or community, frequent or infrequent, triggered or "natural", etc.
  • What triggers the individual to action?
  • Where do they go for expertise - TV, radio, publications, website, social sites, etc?
  • How long do they spend searching?  How long does it take to make a decision?  How long does it take to complete the purchase process?
  • What prior experience do they have with your industry?
  • Who are the most important competitors they are considering?
  • Where do the go on the web to get information?

All of these factors are used to define and differentiate the persona segments.

If these insights are based on a single web survey, how do we create the persona segments for new visitors and new customers?

Once we know the factors which determine how you will relate to the company, we work with you to build them into your marketing process.  Generally, we create touchpoints where we ask a visitor a couple of questions which determine their persona segment.  In most situations, it requires 3 - 5 questions.  We also build them into key applications, response vehicles, and relationship marketing touchpoints to build persona segments for every individual on the database.  The key is - without the persona segments - it is impossible to know what to ask.  The project gives us the insights to quickly get to the "heart" of the questions and ask only questions which are extremely relevant to their relationship with you.

 

What does a Persona Value Clustering Analyses deliver?

Insights and actions!  Because we understand the drivers and triggers to action within your high value persona segments, we can determine where your company's web and market offers "hit or miss" your most profitable segments.  Because we can quantify the value of these key markets, you can use these insights to cost justify new initiative to tailor your website and your marketing programs to the highest value and most growable persona cluster segments.  It allows you to move into collaborative and community based marketing with the knowledge you are meeting the needs, wants, and motivations of your best and most valuable market segments.

 

Integrate all of your digital and traditional Marketing Programs with MSI Persona Value Clusters

Whether you are marketing to businesses or consumers, you need to develop a deep understanding of the needs, drivers, and motivations which move your highest value markets to action.  Let Marketing Synergy use our proven persona segmentation methodology to provide your organization with the market segments, insights, and acquisition knowledge you need to increase your market share in your most profitable markets.  To request information or a proposal for a Persona Value Segmentation project, click