Target Audience and the Importance of Personas (3/5)

We continue our series on impact measurement (ROI and ROO) and efficient experience design with the first layer at the bottom of the ROI pyramid:¹ the target audience, which is at the core of every impactful communications campaign, meeting and event (you can find more details about the ROI Methodology in our second blog entry (2/5) of this series).

Every participant comes with their own perspective, behavior patterns, motivations, goals, personality and experience. In-depth knowledge of the characteristics of your target audience is highly relevant for designing the most effective campaign, meeting or event – as it lies at the heart of every other (further) step in the ROI pyramid: learning environment, learning, behavior change, impact and, ultimately, return on investment (ROI / ROO) (see pyramid below).

ROI Methodology (Phillips, 2008)

The ultimate goal of a communication campaign, meeting or event is to achieve the highest return (ROI / ROO) and create value for business (stakeholders) by motivating the target audience with calls to action and – in the long run – by changing their behavior. At meetings and events, how do we achieve this? And what have “personas” to do with it?

The concept of personas

Personas represent a group of semi-fictional (ideal) guests at a meeting or event and are characterized by their individual preferences and needs. Individual preferences drive meeting requirements and specifications, such as content, delivery format and design of a meeting or event.¹ If these preferences and needs are carefully assessed, we can design a meeting or event accordingly and achieve a high impact on as many participants as possible.

User-centric design is gaining popularity. The focus in designing a meeting or event is on the person.² The concept of personas is perfectly in line with this: working with personas in mind helps to keep the focus on the audience and their needs in each design process. Personal connections with the target audience will ultimately help to achieve a meaningful and individually valuable experience.

Examples of personas

Here are some persona types with a short description of their profile:³

• Knowledge Seeker: looks for opportunities to learn and to better their career, educational sessions drive their attendance, quality of speaker and session content are important to them
• Tech-Savvy Networker: personal relationships, productive conversations and meaningful connections are important, engagement goes beyond face-to-face conversations, multitasker, key component of digital engagement strategy
• Inspiration Seeker: prefers experiences to traditional lectures, looks for meaning and purpose, inspirational speakers and motivational content are important, high expectations
• Social Butterfly: prefers casual social interactions, enthusiastic, spreads information digitally, meeting people is important
• Reluctant Attendee: rather introverted, social gatherings and small talk are not important, might be overwhelmed by the experience
• Brand Fanatic: more suited to events than meetings: brand-centric experience is important, social media savvy, brand dedication and loyal follower, looks for the “inside” scoop
• Negative Persona: very critical, engagement mainly based on personal gains, in the case of a corporate meeting: might leave company soon

Top questions that help to characterize your personas

Questions will help to characterize these personas in greater depth. The questions below are suitable for a corporate meeting:

• Why do they attend?
• What is their “entry behavior” (before event) and aspired/pursued “exit behavior” (what do we want them to do after the event)?
• What do they already know before the meeting? What do we want them to know after the meeting?
• Learning aspect: how do they learn & listen? How to they adapt to new ideas? What is the motivation to engage (start with “what’s in it for me”?) / What makes them disengage?
• What is their preferred way of communication?
• What is their preferred way of networking?
• What is the best strategy for post-event follow-through? (Especially important for corporate management meetings.)

Educational background, culture and the generation they belong to also characterize and influence the preferences and needs of participants. These should also be considered when answering the questions listed above.

Summary

As we already mentioned in our first blog post (1/5) of this series, the target audience is at the core of every campaign, meeting and event. As a designer you need to create an experience that engages as many participants as possible. But as you analyze the target audience (i.e. creating these personas) it is important to keep in mind that human behavior and therefore the characterization of personas is not an exact science.

By applying the concept of attendee personas, you will be able and more than ready to climb the next step on the ROI pyramid: creating an optimal learning environment for your personas.

 

More of our series on impact measurement (ROI and ROO) and efficient experience design:

• A Call for Transparency – Total Meeting Costs (1/5)
• Proving Value Through Strategic Impact Measurement – ROI & ROO (2/5)
• Perfect Meeting Environment to Optimize ROI  & ROO (4/5)

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List of references: 
¹ Phillips, J et al. (2008), “Return on Investment in Meetings & Events – Tools and Techniques to Measure the Success of all Types of Meetings & Events”, New York: Routledge.
² Frissen, R. et al. (2016), “Event Design Handbook – Systematically design innovative events using the Event Canvas”, BIS Publishing.
³ Personas are based on the American Express 2018 Global Meetings & Events Forecast.

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