Mark: Today on PowerTips Unscripted, we talk to Aimee Pagano, senior digital advisor of Hybrid Solutions. The concept behind the persona is pretty simple. Get to know your audience better so that you can build a more meaningful relationship with them. The output of that is inevitable. Company growth and client retention. So how do firms of all sizes build meaningful personas to shape the way they go to market?

Mark: We’ll hear what Aimee thinks in just a minute.

Victoria: Hi, I’m Victoria Downing, and welcome to PowerTips Unscripted, where we talk about tips, tactics and techniques to help you build a strong, profitable remodeling company. And I’m here with my co-host, Mark Harari

Mark: You sure are.

Victoria: How are you today, Mark?

Mark: I’m good. How are you?

Victoria: Good. And today we get to talk about an interesting aspect of marketing. Really.

Mark: Right. Personas. Yes. It’s good stuff.

Victoria: You know, I’ve heard about them. I really don’t know that much about them. And we have not applied them to often from until from time to time in our marketing.

Mark: Hours personally here. Yes.

Victoria: Advantage.

Mark: We have some persona stuff going on. Should we have Dave on to defend himself?

Victoria: Yes. Yes. Dave’s our marketing director. Yeah, that’d be a good idea. Yeah. But let’s get. So this is so this is a lot in your world, being the chief marketing officer here. Yeah. So, you know, let’s. This would be a pretty good discussion. Yeah.

Mark: So it’s going to be a load of fun. Hopefully you’ll be better than this.

Victoria: Okay. Aimee Pagano is a senior digital advisor at High Road Solutions, a smart tech data integration company for associations and membership organizations. She has 20 years of marketing and communication experience. Her specialties include persona development, content strategy and generation, lead gen, and website development optimization. Hey Aimee, thanks for being with us.

Aimee: Thank you so much. I’m excited.

Victoria: You know, I read a great article that you wrote for the Association News, and I knew I had to have you as a guest on the podcast, so I appreciate you.

Aimee: Excellent, excellent. I’m glad you saw that. And I’m anxious to talk more about it.

Victoria: So tell me a little bit what is a persona? Let’s just start with basics. And and how would firms use it?

Aimee: Yeah, absolutely. So, there are a couple different ways to look at it. But at the crux of it, persona is really this, fictitious, represented version of what your target audience is. So when you’re thinking about it from a kind of a prospect standpoint, or, you may hear the word buyer persona a lot, it’s a little more of an aspirational persona.

Aimee: That’s really okay. What is the audience? That’s going to what’s the audience we can identify? That’s going to be a net new client for us. So that’s one way to look.

Victoria: So explain that a little bit. You want to I how are we identifying the clients we have now or the clients that we want to have in the future?

Aimee: Perfect. Perfect question. So the answer is both. The answer is absolutely both. You want to look at it from a broad perspective. And you want to say, okay, here are the clients that we have right now. And obviously we don’t just bring them on and then just leave them there. You know, you want to continue cultivating that relationship.

Aimee: And as such, there’s a good way that you can look into that client base and identify the trends and patterns. And you’re almost building these buckets of clients and categorizing your clients, all for the pure reason of building that relationship with them. The better serving of content, in the right way. Maybe your services down the line that are more relevant and make sense at the right time.

Aimee: Then on the other end of things, it’s, it may be clients that, hey, this is a market we don’t have at this point. Maybe it’s a newer generation. Whatever the case may be. This is maybe it’s commercial or something like that. That’s we want to get into that market that’s aspirational for us. So that’s you may not have the actual raw data in front of you, but you can take a combination of behavioral and demographic and, and psychographic kind of inference data to pull together this fictional character.

Aimee: I would say this icon that’s representing that target audience.

Victoria: So how exactly do you go about building these personas?

Aimee: Good question. So it’s it’s a mix. And I will say that, you know, this is, any company can do this. Any organization can do this. Whether you’re light on data, whether you have, you know, just bounce and bounce of data. This is something that any group can accomplish. There’s some tool sets that you can certainly use.

Aimee: One and I always leave with this. I think this is important in life and, marketing and in business, you need a sense of empathy. So you have to be able to sit down and put yourself in your client’s shoes. Okay? What are they? What’s in their day to day? What makes them tick? What are their biggest challenges?

Aimee: How can we get in there and solve those problems? You know, the second piece is more it’s it’s that harder data. Data drive. Or data dive, I should say. And so this is really getting into if you do have existing clients, take a look at that list. What are the commonalities across that list? What is that list telling you?

Aimee: In some cases, you can validate that even more by interviewing, you know, cherry picking maybe ten of those clients, ten even prospects, if you can get them on the phone, and interview them, ask them a set of, you know, maybe take ten minutes, ask them a set of ten questions and see some anecdotal feedback to support what you may have already gathered from a data perspective.

Aimee: There’s an element that I call and I you know, I, I saying this, we have a subset of guys, but, I call it the creep factor. And so this is where you’re looking at your contacts, your list of contacts, with their prospects or their clients. And get out of that data spreadsheet or that data, you know, whatever is housing your data.

Aimee: Take a look at them on social media. That’s where you’re going to get the meet. That’s really where you’re going to. So check them out on LinkedIn. Or in your case is more so I would say if you’re talking residential, I would say more, Facebook or whatnot and just see what makes them tick. This is always a really good way.

Aimee: It’s it’s it’s not the hard and fast data that you’re collecting via maybe a transactional form. It’s a softer way to get there. Essentially.

Victoria: So were you calling it the creepy thing because you’re sort of you’re sort of, you know, going through the back door to learn more about some.

Aimee: It is it’s a, it’s, you know, it’s this is really a it’s in my mind, it is a good way to really figure out what makes things tick. I am approaching social media cautiously lately, just based on, some of the things that are going on. You know, it’s it’s I cringe a little bit as I say it, but.

Aimee: Yeah, absolutely.

Victoria: So any one organization, do they have one persona for their current clients?

Aimee: They it would be very unique to have one persona. I, I always recommend it between 5 and 7. That’s not a hard and fast. That’s just a nice, threshold to consider. And I would also say that, you know, we predominantly serve associations. We actually mostly serve associations. So that’s more of a metric for associations.

Aimee: But with that. So it may, it may vary from segment to segment. But with that said, I think that’s fair. It’s it’s what you call a, call a persona matrix. If I were looking at, you know, making an assumption about what the what personas or potential cuts of personas could be for, the remodeling industry and building industry.

Aimee: You know, it could you could cut it from a standpoint. Here are the commercial clients. Here are residential. Here’s industrial. That’s one way to look at it. Or, look at it from federal or state or whatever the case may be. Whatever makes the most sense for your firm. That’s how you would start with kind of, delineating and segmenting your audience.

Aimee: And then, of course, rounding that out with tons and tons of of data and assumptions.

Mark: I mean, how would how would you differentiate, what we’re talking about buyer personas as opposed to a company’s target market?

Aimee: I don’t know that I would, I would I think, in the past, when the word target market was used, I think it was really mostly focused on, kind of audience segmentation, I would say. And this is a portion of it, you know, building a buyer persona is a portion of it. I think the biggest difference is, is that you’re starting to see more and more within, when you’re building and, and I should say as well, when you build a buyer persona, it’s perpetual.

Aimee: You’re constantly rounding out that persona based on what you’re learning, what you’re picking up from your prospects and your clients. But I would say what’s happening is with all the tools that are out there that can collect data, and as marketers get smarter in what they’re doing, smarter in both skill and buzz and in technology, you’re able to incorporate more behavioral and psychographic data, into what was previously probably mostly segmented at the, the demographic side of things.

Mark: So, Aimee, for for our listeners, could you, define the difference between demographic and psychographic data?

Aimee: Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah. So, demographic is what everybody, I think is familiar with at this point. This is, it’s an identifier. Could be, you know what your job function, it could be your geography, whatever the case is. But I think, when people are, when there’s transactional information exchanged or, certainly when you’re first coming on as a client, this is the first kind of information you get, right, that goes into a form, and then it goes up top into a database.

Aimee: Then you move on to, psychographic. And so this is really what I call the squishy stuff. So this is, it’s hard to access. I call it psychographic inference because it’s hard to hold it in one cell without a form. It’s really more, what makes this person tick? It would be like if you were, it’s likened to if you were sitting down with somebody at a coffee shop for an hour and asking them questions and, and really getting into it.

Aimee: That’s really the psychographic piece. So, what are their aspirational views? Where do they stand on things? That’s really what psychographic is. And then the behavioral element is, that’s really okay. What content are they consuming. And this is where you hear marketing automation tools. And you do hear, you know, whether it’s Google Analytics or social media tools that are collecting all of this information, that’s essentially essentially assessing how somebody’s, how are users consuming content and that content consumption is then kind of, you’re able to then make educated assumptions on, okay, based on this, this is kind of what makes them tick.

Aimee: This is what they may buy. This is, you know, they may not be interested in at this point or engaged at this point. So what are the differences?

Mark: So, well, you everything all of this is based on, on the data you have and segmenting and siloing the, the data base and and all that happy funds marketing stuff. But what do you do if you don’t have that data?

Aimee: That data. That’s a great question. So if you don’t if you’re not looking at, hard data, then you absolutely can sit down. And I always recommend doing this as a full team. So you want to make sure, as with anything, and I think we’re hearing this a lot in the world today. You need multiple perspectives. Not just one perspective.

Aimee: You need it from every single angle. So, you know, whether you’re a tall or a small team or a bigger team, you know, whatever the size of your firm is, get perspectives from every single, job function within that firm. You know, whether it’s the owner, whether whether it is a builder, you know, somebody, involved in production, have them sit down and literally have them, we have an exercise that we do over at Higher Ed Solutions, which it’s guided by a workbook workbook, but that’s really anchored by, some key principles.

Aimee: You ask yourself the question of obviously the demographic, what are their demographics, which most likely you’ll have, or you could probably get asked them. So ask them the question of, what are your goals? What are their goals and challenges every day? What are their skills and attributes? What would prevent them from buying or moving forward in a relationship with you?

Aimee: And then where is their opportunity with you? If you kind of plot this out, then right there, you’re starting to round out your persona profile.

Victoria: So could you you know, you’ve done a lot of this, you’ve worked a lot of associations. And I know that’s a little bit different than our remodeling companies, but could you describe 1 or 2 personas like, you know, bring them to life for us, for clients you’ve helped?

Aimee: Absolutely. I can actually use, our own just to. So I’m preserving some of our clients, own information. But we, for instance. So we are a what I would call a smart tech company, smart tech, digital, integration company. And so we essentially help, associations kind of bridge that gap between, mainstream marketing technologies.

Aimee: And, you know, the association space itself. So, so that they’re operating at that level. So our personas would be there is one called content. Colleen. So, and there’s always I always use like using alliteration because people remember it. But contact Colleen is the, proverbial doer. She is the implementer essentially. So she’s the one in the market basically in our digital marketing platforms using the tools.

Aimee: So she’s the one that wants to keep her skills honed. She is constantly learning new tools and technologies. She wants to make her life easier. She wants things to be more automated. She wants the marketing to be more effective. So that would be a that would be a, description. And what I just included was just a snapshot of what her persona profile looks like.

Aimee: But imagine just knowing content, Colleen. And there is an entire bucket of people out there that fall under the content. Colleen category. What we can do to get to her or him.

Victoria: Okay.

Aimee: You know, you can see you can see from there that, we’re then able to approach her or him in a different way. We, our language is different. The content we’re putting in front. So content, meaning webinars. We put out a conference now on a semi semi annual basis. So conferences tracks within conferences and then ultimately software and services, the ones that make the most sense for content.

Aimee: Colleen.

Victoria: So knowing her persona you would use headlines and subject lines and things like we can help you make your team’s life easier. We can help you, you know, use the ultimate software for your automation needs, things like that.

Aimee: Absolutely.

Victoria: Versus now get me another one.

Aimee: Another one. We also have David DBA. So because we are a smart tech, company, we kind of straddle both sides. So one the marketing side and then to the tech side. So David DBA is going to be we have he’s going to be the guy or girl. We are gender neutral. And that although in both cases that does tend to be more women on the content side and more men on the David side.

Aimee: But basically he’s there with his hands in what we call association management system. So it could be, you know, that’s a the comparable version to the for profit world’s CRM customer relationship. Yeah, exactly. So this is a guy that’s the tinkering. This is the guy that’s, owning the data, owns the data integration. Because we have a, an integration tool as well.

Aimee: So we need to talk to him and think about the differences in how we would talk to these two differently. Somebody in marketing my content kindly, Colleen, is very strategic, very outcome focused, very, goal driven. Somebody that’s more a DBA David, is is going to be more I want to solve this problem. I am a very linear thinker on the, I analyze things, but in a very different way.

Aimee: And I want to make sure that whatever platforms I’m bringing in, whatever integrations are coming in, it’s solid. So there you can see that’s that’s different language. It’s also different content that we’re going to place in front of the two of them. So from a, you know, the content could be with content. Colleen. With in associations change tends to be there’s a lot of change.

Aimee: The version certainly. So something you could put in front of a content Colleen is manage a, you know, a handbook on managing change essentially within your organization. So that’s free. That’s free to Colleen. That helps Colleen, you know, understand things a little better, make her way better, in her own job. But it’s also building that relationship.

Aimee: So our organization at that point has instilled some confidence in Colleen and is starting to build that rapport essentially. Okay.

Victoria: All right I think I get it. So you would have totally different lead magnets for each persona and really segment everything you’re doing. So for a small business, does that mean separate newsletters, separate email campaigns, separate social.

Aimee: Yeah, I would I would end it without there are ways that you it doesn’t have to be necessarily separate. You can definitely there’s things that you can do with newsletters, you know, like dynamic content, or super sized kind of versions that where you’re sending up and you’re serving up entirely individualized newsletters. But it is it is going to.

Aimee: Yes, absolutely. An answer to your question. Once you’ve rounded out this persona, then you’re going to content, you’re going to content map. So that’s really and just breaking that down as you are storyboarding their entire experience with you from a prospect to, you know, a warmer prospect to a customer or client, to an ongoing maybe or an advocate client, kind of, and, you know, your content and your intellectual capital and your services all support that.

Mark: Would you like to hear one of our personas that we have on the show?

Aimee: Let’s hear.

Mark: It. Yeah, yeah. Answering Aimee, who loves the lightning round. Is that you, Aimee? Are you going to be ready for a lightning round?

Aimee: I don’t know, I don’t know, I mean, yes okay.

Mark: And now here’s the reminders. Advantage lightning round. It’s a draft. Answering Aimee persona. Here we go. What’s your favorite business book and why?

Aimee: It is this is the book I’m reading right now, so forgive me if I’m, I’m probably going to get the author’s name a little off, but it’s algorithms of oppression how search engines reinforce racism. Oh, and it’s by, it’s, pretty intense. It’s by, Sophia major Nobel. Yeah. So pretty incredible book.

Mark: If you weren’t a senior digital advisor for high rate solutions, what do you think you’d be doing.

Aimee: 100%? I would be writing fantasy sci fi novels. I’ve written it’s my passion, essentially. So I’ve written a couple already. I’m going into my third. Congratulations.

Victoria: That’s awesome.

Aimee: Thank you. You.

Mark: What? Do you not very good at?

Aimee: Money budgeting. And it’s not that I, can’t do it. It’s that I don’t want to do it. So I’m not necessarily exercising that muscle.

Mark: Your room, your desk or your car. Which would you clean first? And just name something you refuse to share?

Aimee: Oh, my little girl, I know I’m jealous. I get very protective.

Mark: What’s the first four letter word that comes to mind?

Victoria: Because I.

Aimee: Love.

Victoria: Lives?

Mark: I if you guys, this isn’t video because their face on that was epic. The eyes. Your eyes got so big, you’re like, oh, I don’t want to answer this.

Victoria: Hey, Aimee, this was great. Very interesting. You know, makes you really think about how you could take your marketing to the next level and really focus in, pinpoint those people that you want to reach with their own specific messages. So I appreciate you being here. But before we let you go, I would love to have you share with us your five words of wisdom and why they resonate with you.

Aimee: I would say that, kindness and empathy heals all. I think that this is, important. And today’s world, well, you know it. This is, you know, this is my thinking, you know, pre everything that’s happening right now, I think this should always be here. It shouldn’t be here just for just in the now. I think it should just be a constant kind of mantra, for everybody to think that that’s what we’re here for.

Victoria: There’s a that’s a fabulous sentiment for sure. I totally agree with you, Aimee. Again, Aimee Pagano, thank you again for being part of PowerTips Unscripted. We appreciate you being here.

Aimee: Thank you so much. I think this is great.

Victoria: So I know that, you know, this is a piece of marketing and you’ve been pretty deep into this, into the whole marketing thing for bunches and bunches of years. What do you think about personas and, and how Aimee was talking about them?

Mark: Yeah. It’s interesting. You know, it’s such a, I hate to say it’s, it’s controversial or something, but, you know, there’s just so many different ways to look at things and so many different viewpoints on this. So even like a definition of a persona as opposed to your target, I’ve run into so many people that say, I know the same thing, and then other people that vehemently disagree and say, no, no, these are completely different things.

Mark: So it depends on who you talk to. As far as how this works out, you need to find the right process for you. As for me, I think that a percent is something within your target market. You have to identify your target, and once you’ve identified your target client, then you if you’re so inclined to get granular, that’s what the personas for.

Mark: It’s for really drilling down. And then you’d have your you’re really dialed in. People within that group of a target. So.

Victoria: Right. Doesn’t it seem as though now with social media that you, if you had the manpower and the knowhow that you could segment a little bit easier in social because, you know, it’s not like you’re paying for a print ad like in the old days or anything like that. So you could have three different types of messages on social media, couldn’t you?

Mark: You can. Yeah. I mean, the benefit of it’s definitely something that’s easier and less expensive to pull off nowadays with because of the low cost of digital writing. You’re not going to want to do that with billboards and print ads. No, but on the digital landscape, yeah, that that definitely could work. But you’re still kind of risking because you if you, if you, if you go too far off the reservation, if you’re, you’re going after like the stay at home mom with, with twins at home and the unmarried 50 year old guy Harley driver, your company’s not going to look the same to these two people, and you can’t make it look the same

Mark: to the two people where you’re going to connect with both of them. So, you know, at least stay within the on the reservation a little bit. Yeah. If you get too broad, you’re going to be nothing to nobody in my opinion.

Victoria: Yep, yep I totally agree with you. That makes sense.

Mark: Yeah. So that’s great stuff. Damian was was great week answering Aimee did well. Yes. Yes she did. Yeah.

Victoria: And really nice for her to do this. So that was generous of her. And we’re delighted to have her. And, so we’ll continue on her wink at that.

Mark: Peace out. Yeah. I’m not good at that. I don’t want to leave that in there and say, look, she she made it all the way to the very end, and then she couldn’t say good bye. Everybody.

Victoria: That’s all right. Sorry I couldn’t. That’s your role.

Mark: Yeah. Yeah. Well we want to thank I’m going to do my role now. We want to thank Aimee Pagano for joining us today. And we want to thank you for joining us week in and week out. I am Mark Harari.

Victoria: I was trying to think of what I could call you to the goodbye Mark, but I couldn’t think of an M word to get the alliteration.

Mark: All I could think of and then more. But what?

Victoria: And I’m Victoria Downing. Thank you. And see you next time.