In the competitive world of marketing, understanding and connecting with customers on a deeper level is the key to success. Traditional product-centric approaches are gradually giving way to customer-centric strategies. One powerful tool that facilitates this shift is persona clustering. By leveraging advanced AI algorithms and machine learning techniques, clustering helps marketers to identify patterns, group similar data points, and personalize marketing efforts for precise targeting. Here, we will explore the concept of personas, the opportunities they present. We will also see how businesses can effectively utilize NextUser to harness the power of data-driven personas.
Opportunity: using existing personalization data for personas
Personalization has become an integral part of delivering tailored experiences to customers. By utilizing existing data, businesses can gain valuable insights to create customer personas. Clustering, the process of grouping similar data points, forms the foundation for persona creation. By applying AI algorithms and machine learning techniques, marketers can identify patterns and behaviors. Then, they get a more profound understanding of customers and optimizing marketing outcomes.
To truly connect with customers, businesses need to adopt a customer-centric approach. Personas enable marketers to shift their focus from products to customers in many ways. They can understand their audience, identify their needs, and customize marketing strategies accordingly. By creating unique images and value propositions for each persona, businesses tailor their messaging and offerings. It enables them to increase engagement and drive conversions.
Let’s delve into how personas can revolutionize different aspects of business operations with three NextUser’s use cases.
Pernod Ricard (USA) – Successful lead generation campaign
Pernod Ricard is a global group of friendly, responsible and efficient wines and spirits. Number 2 worldwide, they have one of the most comprehensive portfolios in the industry with 240 premium brands available in over 160 countries. The brand sought to find new leads to generate, and gain a deeper understanding of them through information such as name, gender, emails, phones, location, company, etc. In fact, Pernod Ricard needed this information to regroup the potential leads into clusters with AI, in order to address them through personalized ads for each clusters. With NextUser, the brand created 5 clusters, which resulted in a total of 188.3K impressions, 669 new leads and a CPA divided by 10 times.
Global results of the Pernod Ricard campaign, and explanation of 3 of their 5 clusters
Schneider Electric (Canada) – Optimize the conversion funnel
Schneider Electric SE is a multinational company that specializes in digital automation and energy management with 29B EUR revenue in 2021. NextUser works with 20 distributors and provides personalization for 8 of their brands. For their brand Ideal Supply, the group wanted to drive qualified leads to the website in order to engage newly acquired clients, and maximize the revenues generated by SE products. NextUser helped Ideal Supply target electricians based on segmentation approach, group them into clusters and provide the right set of products and tone of messaging in order to convert more potential leads. This resulted in identifying 12.4K leads in Ontario, +34% e-sales for SE and $10.54 ROI for each $1 spent on NextUser’s solution.
Example of different ads used for different clusters, and the effect they had
Nestl̩ Baby & Me (France) РIdentifying influencers and new potential clients
Nestlé S.A. is a Swiss multinational food and drink processing conglomerate corporation. It is the largest food company in the world, measured by revenues (CHF91.43B in 2018). The brand wanted to drive qualified leads to their website, in order to retain parents (to feed CRM program), and maximize the engagement of new parents. To do so, NextUser helped Nestlé Baby & Me target parents with an advanced segmentation approach with AI (personas), and to address them accurately. We helped them personalize the user experience with relevant messages, contents and products. Finally, this approach by clustering resulted in identifying 403 influencers for the program “Les petits ambassadeurs” (“The little ambassadors”) and helped identifying +49% new moms in 2019 (source: INSEE).
Analysis of the Baby & Me segmentation campaign
The process: from data to personas
NextUser provides a powerful platform for persona development by leveraging user profiles and a wealth of data. User profiles encompass key information such as location, device, and operating system. These information provide valuable insights into customer preferences. Labels, segments, and events further enrich the user profiles, incorporating browsing history, average order value, and purchase information. By analyzing patterns in historical and transactional data, NextUser also helps businesses establish relationships between various factors, unlocking deeper customer understanding.
Information on users are collected and gathered on NextUser’s platform
Matching the information that the client desires to know with the list of information that is gathered on NextUser’s platform
To create personas, the user profile is your gold mine. Developing personas involves dividing clients into distinct clusters based on their characteristics, preferences, or behaviors. This process allows businesses to create personas that represent different customer segments accurately. Some potential personas could include price-conscious clients seeking deals and discounts, quality-focused customers prioritizing products quality, or socially conscious customers preferring eco-friendly products. By understanding the diverse personas within their customer base, businesses can adapt their marketing strategies. Then, they can cater to specific needs and preferences.
Example of all the information you can collect to establish accurate personas
Example of personas explained in the tab above
Personalization: adapting for personas
Adapting marketing efforts for personas is a crucial step towards delivering personalized experiences. By taking a holistic approach and developing a 360-degree view of the customer journey, businesses can address their targets specifically through personalized ads, and implement content personalization workflows that lead to a higher return on investment (ROI). Integrating CRM data with social insights enhances customer segmentation, enabling a comprehensive understanding of customer preferences and behaviors. Through data collection, feature engineering, data enrichment, and the selection of appropriate clustering algorithms, businesses can refine their targeting strategies and create more impactful marketing campaigns.
NextUser simplifies the persona assignment process by facilitating the generation of tags or micro-segments. These tags are automatically applied to users when specific criteria are met, allowing for efficient workflows and personalized user journeys based on personas. By leveraging the capabilities of NextUser’s platform, businesses can scale their persona-driven marketing efforts and streamline the personalization process.
