Hello Iterative Marketers!
Welcome to the Iterative Marketing Podcast
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Now let's dive into the show.
Hello everyone and welcome to the Iterative Marketing podcast.
I am your host Steve Robinson
and with me as always is the gone way too long, Elizabeth Earin.
How are you doing today, Elizabeth?
I am well. It's nice to see you.
It is nice to see you.
We've been in touch via phone here
but we haven't sat down to record in quite a while.
It has been a while, yes.
So for our listeners who do not know or did not know
I had a baby,
we hadn't made the announcement yet on the podcast
because we thought we had a little extra time before the baby got here
but she decided to come early,
she came about six weeks early
but we're both out of the hospital and doing fine
and I now have a beautiful four-month-old baby girl.
And she is beautiful.
Thank you, thank you.
Yeah, we decided we weren't going to do the whole –
we're going to make sure if you're walking around the room
you've got a pillow in front of you
and because you're already only shot from here up anyway, so...
I thought we had some more time,
we had a solid plan in place,
she just decided to come a little early, so...
Yeah, so I want to apologize to our audience for a little gap we had here.
We tried to get as many episodes in the can as possible
but best laid plans didn't align with Mother Nature
and all that really matters though is that
there is another beautiful Earin in this world
and we get to come back and do this again.
Thank you, thank you!
Yeah, I'm excited to be back.
I've missed our podcasts,
so I'm excited to see what we're talking about today.
So I thought today we would talk about diversity in personas.
We had something come up over at Brilliant Metrics
that brought this topic to mind
and really started a dialog with a client
and internally in a completely different way.
As you know, Elizabeth, we would regularly get asked
about diversity within our personas,
should our personas be more diverse. Right?
Yeah and it was –
we always kind of steered away from that
because you want to limit the number of personas you have.
If you have too many personas
then you kind of get meddled in those details
and now you're trying to create new content and new collateral
and all of these new components for so many different people
and it becomes unmanageable.
Yeah
and our standard response was your persona should match your audience.
So, if your audience is not diverse
then don't try and make your personas diverse
and that line really held up
right up until it didn't
and so I thought we would
we talk through how that happened
and talk through our reasoning for our standard line
and how that might change in the future.
So, what was the standard line that we gave everyone?
Well, the standard line was that
the persona should match the gender and ethnicity
of the majority of the segments that it's trying to reach
and there were a couple of reasons for this.
So, the first reason has to do with cognitive dissonance
and we've talked about this in past episodes
but it's when two ideas don't fit well together
and a great example of this when we're talking about personas is that
if we are documenting the persona for a plant manager
and 90% of the plant managers are male
but then we create a persona for Julia, a female,
that doesn't necessarily make sense
and then what happens is that we get so focused on the fact that
we're now talking about this woman Julia
when we're typically interacting with males
that it starts to sort of get in the way of
just naturally being able to identify with this person.
Yeah. There are kind of two levels of our brain, right?
There's the conscious brain, the one that we work hard to think with
and then there's the more innate emotionally-driven animal type of brain
and our goal with personas is
to be able to tap into that more animal type of brain
that more emotionally driven, empathy driven part of the brain
and when you have something that
makes you think like
this is the wrong gender for what I know
or this is the wrong ethnicity for what I know about this particular person
then it gets in the way of that more guttural part of your brain
being able to empathize with that persona
and pretend that's a real person
which is what you want,
you want to trick your brain into thinking that that Julia is real.
Yeah, and this happens all the time.
I mean I can't tell you how many times we've sat in meetings with sales teams
and they've brought this up
and they're like, well, but that's not who it is,
that's not who we're talking to,
and so this is a real problem that
organizations deal within their persona development process.
There's a second reason why
it's dangerous to make your persona a minority within that targeted audience,
whether it's by gender, race, or even some other,
even geography, like if they don't live where they're supposed to live
but especially when it comes to gender and race
because if you make your persona a minority then
when you are empathizing with that persona,
it comes with a lot of other,
I hesitate to use the word baggage,
but with a lot of other facets to that persona, right?
An example would be
and I didn't know this until I looked up the stat
but veterinary professionals are 86% white and 81% female, right?
So, if I create a persona named Bruce
who's a black male veterinary professional
and I know that audience which I didn't until I looked up that stat
I would know that that Bruce is a minority,
Bruce stands out
and along with that I start to attach a whole lot of other ideas to Bruce, right?
So, you'd be focusing on things like gender and racial barriers
rather than maybe some of the other things
that would be associated with Sarah
who's our typical veterinarian that we see.
Yeah.
Bruce becomes a trailblazer,
he becomes a bold determined individual
who is willing to buck the stereotypes
and it's not just limited to veterinarians,
I mean this happens in a lot of professions.
If you can think about what it would be like if you created a persona for
a non-white or non-male coal mine worker
or a female sheet-metal worker,
even male nurses,
I mean you start to when you get inside the head
of what it's like to be in a profession that you don't match
you start to carry with all the empathy
of what it must be like to be a minority
and face some discrimination or face just being the odd one out.
Well, our personas document
fears and wants and desires
and so when you are looking at those minority personalities or personas,
when you are looking at the male nurse
he's going to necessarily have different aspirations
or he may have different fears
or different experiences that have led to that.
And so this has been our standard line
but that last thing that you talked about,
about some of those different fears and different aspirations
and some of those
that additional texture that comes with that particular persona
sometimes that's what we need
and I think that's what came up with this particular client.
I'm not going to mention who it is because it's,
obviously diversity is delicate,
that's a delicate industry
but I think when we get back from the charity break,
we'll dive into why sometimes you do want the extra facets
that come along with that minority persona.
And so with that, let's go help some people.
Before we continue I'd like to take a quick moment
to ask you Iterative Marketers a small but meaningful favor
and ask that you give a few dollars to a charity
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This week's charitable cause
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Right now there are thousands of classroom requests
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We love sharing causes that are important to you.
And we are back.
Okay, so back to the story at the beginning,
we had this client that come along that
basically changes up our standard line, right?
And I'll fill in a little bit here
because Elizabeth obviously you're not there interacting with this client,
so for starters
this client is a membership organization,
so that changes things right there,
we're now marketing to try and bring members into the ranks
and engage members within the ranks.
Secondarily,
diversity happens to be a major initiative
both for membership and also for the industry at large that they represent
and so this kind of changes the game
about what it might mean to create personas
that are focusing attention on the majority of the audience.
Well, with one of their goals being diversity
not recognizing and not acknowledging those minority personalities
is going to keep them from being able to accomplish their goals
because they're going to be stuck in designing marketing materials
and collateral and messaging that fits that general population
as opposed to these minority populations that they want to go after more.
Yeah.
They could even create materials
that inadvertently make minorities feel uncomfortable
that could send exactly the opposite message that they want to
and obviously it would be anything that they do consciously
but by focusing to cater to that audience
they could end up sabotaging their own diversity initiatives.
At the same time though if they focus on the personas,
the minority personas,
then they can actually create messaging
that doesn't apply to the original audience
or the audience they had the original personas designed for as well,
correct?
Yeah.
Maybe not so much push away the original personas
but focusing on the wrong psychographic tendencies,
the wrong issues.
Again bringing back to your point earlier,
a minority within an industry,
particularly a profession that is primarily male when they're female
or female when they're male
or black when they're white
that creates its own set of psychographics,
it creates its own set of diversity frustrations,
aspirations, attitudes, feelings,
and so if your marketing messaging is catering to those
frustrations, aspirations, and feelings,
you might be missing the shared frustrations,
the shared aspirations,
the shared feelings among both the minority audience and the majority audience
because you're stepping over those to get to the more stronger emotions
that you would identify with a minority audience.
So and I think I know the answer to this question
but what's the solution?
I know we're huge advocates for as few personas as possible
but I think that this is the instance
where you need to actually have a second set of personas.
I don't know, what do you think?
Yes and I think
the key here is coming back
and really looking at what the organization's objectives are
and looking at the organization,
the makeup of the organization
and having that conversation
and acknowledging that there are differences.
By creating one majority and one minority
specifically in those areas
where diversity is something that they're trying to work on
I think that's the only way
they're going to be able to meet those goals and objectives.
Yeah.
And then the way that I see us using these is
build for the majority audience
and have that persona front of mine
because you can't have more than one persona front of mine
while you're doing your work,
it just doesn't work,
build for the majority audience
and then set that persona aside
and then pull out your minority persona
and then go back through everything you did
from the perspective of that minority persona
as if you were embodying him or her
and then take a look at at the experience that you're creating
and make sure that it is
equally or maybe even slightly better for that minority persona along the path
but that it's solving the pain points,
it's meeting the needs,
it's addressing the desires, wants, or frustrations
of the majority audience first.
So, let me ask you this if we –
I want to make sure I understand,
so we'll design it to our majority persona
and then we'll come back and we'll double-check
that collateral against our minority persona.
Now, if there's something there that doesn't jive with our minority persona
are you saying that we should revise the collateral
or are you saying that we should create new collateral?
Ooh! That's a great question.
I think it depends on your goals and your budget.
I think it depends on
if you can do it in an authentic way that's not pandering,
then yes,
if you have a diversity initiative
I think that it makes sense to go ahead and create
a second set of collateral if you feel that's the best course of action
and you can't just go back and revise the initial.
Yeah.
I would actually caution about revising the initial,
not saying that it can't be done
but be wary of revising it so much that now you've got such a generic message
that it's not actually speaking to anyone
because I could see that potentially going –
this happening in this scenario.
It's interesting.
It almost paints a whole other layer onto the problem
because by creating two messages
are you losing the opportunity to drive acceptance
and push those diversity initiatives
a little bit into your majority audience too, right?
Exactly.
And I think though this is just a perfect example of why we need personas
because we're trying to get inside of the
heads of such different groups of people
and find that message that resonates with them
and it's not as simple as a checkbox.
This isn't one of those decision trees
that you just like if it's yes then you go here
and if it's no you go here,
this is where your experience as a marketer is going to come into play
and you're going to test
and then use the data you gather
to figure out what the right way to go is.
For those of you that aren't watching on video right now
I can see Steve's mind working here.
I can see the gears turning
that I've asked you a question
that maybe you hadn't considered
and I have a feeling
there's going to be a lot of new ideas that come out of this.
So that was fun to watch. - Yeah, yeah
So where is this applicable?
Because again we don't want to create more personas than we have to,
so we don't want to be going create minority personas all over the place,
so I'll tell you where I think
but I'm curious where do you think this is applicable, Elizabeth?
So, I think when we talk specifically
was sort of how this started with a membership organization,
I think it's a great place for it to start
but I think there's other opportunities too.
Recruitment marketing I think would be a great example,
HR departments are starting to use personas to craft job descriptions
and they're using that to help identify
which of those resumes are going to be the best fit for the company
and not only that but to use those personas
to help figure out what sort of environment do we want to create,
what does our culture look like,
and how can we use that to pull in the right candidates,
to attract the right people.
And so in those cases I could see this potentially working
because if you're trying to diversify your workforce
you're going to see some differences
in what may be attracting people to that specific job
or even your organization.
Yeah.
I think it also comes into play with existing team members as well,
so our existing employees,
if you're doing some employer branding
or some facet of your marketing is going to be hitting
the audience of your existing employee base
and you see this a lot in larger organizations,
then obviously diversity is top of mind for your own employees.
So, in that case
there may be a very good use case for creating a minority persona.
That makes sense.
I have another question that just popped in my head.
So when we're talking about these minority personas
that we would be creating
are we taking our majority persona
and then just tweaking the fears and aspirations section
or is this an entirely different persona?
Well, I think day in the life is largely going to be the same I think,
background is largely going to be the same I think,
the key differences are really going to come into play in the psychographics.
I think that that's really where it comes out
in fears, wants, desires, needs
but certainly I mean it also needs to be accurate.
So, if you look at this persona and you say,
well, no, it's actually not like that
if you're a minority in this particular field,
then you'd want to change that
and I think most of what we've been talking about has been B2B
but I think there are plenty of B2C use cases as well.
Yeah.
It's I think it's just interesting,
sorry, my mind's turning right now.
I think it's interesting too
because a lot of times when we're sitting in these persona development meetings
a lot of those discussions get held up by what is their background
and some of the color that we're adding to make them real to us
and really the key takeaway here is those psychographics
is what we really want to be focusing on
to make sure that we're meeting their needs
and we're talking to them about something that they've got
an interest in and passion about.
And at the same time
you really only want to change them
when it overshadows the basic psychographics of the majority persona
and that's not going to happen everywhere
and it's not even going to happen all that often I would think
but you can't tell me being a female or minority coal mine worker
that you approach work every day
exactly the same as your white male counterpart.
There is a difference there.
Well, thank you for that divergence.
Yeah.
Let's summarize what we talked about today
and the few conclusions we did come to
although I think I speak for both of us
when I say our heads are still spinning a little bit on this
but I think one of the key things is
is the next time you build out your persona
know your numbers
and know for sure
whether you are even talking about a minority audience in the first place
and I threw out a couple of statistics today,
we will link to some resources in the show notes,
there is a really cool site I stumbled on called datausa.io
and then of course the Bureau of Labor Statistics
publishes all of their stats as well
and you can really dive into at least gender
and racial diversity and percentages there.
And that's a great place to start
when you're just getting started on your persona development
and trying to figure that out
and compare that to your own audience or customer segments.
If your personas also support recruitment like staffing
or a membership organization like we discussed today
or they overlap with any sort of diversity initiatives
then you're going to want to make sure that
you explore that minority persona in addition to your majority persona.
It's always important as Steve mentioned earlier
that you are designing your collateral with one specific person in mind
and then using that to double-check as you move forward.
Yeah.
And that's the key, it's a double check.
So, build with that majority in mind
and then come back and check with the minority
unless you are specifically building something targeted
at that minority audience
as you suggested might be valuable in some cases.
So with that I want to thank everyone for taking the time to join us today
and until next time onward and upward.
If you haven't already, be sure to subscribe to the podcast on YouTube
on your favorite podcast directory.
If you want notes and links to resources discussed on the show
sign up to get them emailed to you each week at iterativemarketing.net.
There you'll also find the Iterative Marketing blog
and our community LinkedIn group
where you can share ideas and ask questions
of your fellow Iterative Marketers.
You can also follow us on Twitter.
Our user name is @iter8ive
or email us at podcast@iterativemarketing.net.
The Iterative Marketing Podcast is a production of Brilliant Metrics
a consultancy helping brands and agencies
rid the world of marketing waste.
Our producer is Heather Ohlman
with transcription assistance from Emily Bechtel.
Our music is by SeaStock Audio, Music Production and Sound Design.
You can check them out at seastockaudio.com.
We will see you next week.
Until then onward and upward!
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