User Personas Crank Up Your ROI (With Examples)

Ever feel like you’ve done everything you can do to squeeze that last percentage of conversion out of your campaign - and you’re struggling to get it any higher? You feel like you have split-tested plenty of ads and written (or copied someone’s) “best” landing page and sales copy for the offer - but your ROI has seemingly reached a plateau and won’t grow?

Here is how most affiliate marketers approach targeting a new audience:

1. they discover a new target market/niche (through their AM or word of mouth)
2. find out what the ‘hottest’ offers are and take a quick glance at their landing pages
3. Maybe do some quick ‘research’ on keywords and then check out the core demographic at Quantcast
4. They throw together some ads and landing page copy based on what they assume will work for their core demographic.  Perhaps they get some ads and landing page suggestions from their buddies or affiliate managers who are already doing ok with them.
5. Launch
6. Get low or mediocre click-through and conversion rates on ads and landing pages, and be like “Wtf?!?”

Sounds familiar? If you have done this, you have fallen for the mistake of thinking that you “know” who your buyer is. Or assuming you know enough about them to sell to them. Most of the time, this isn’t the case.

Most of the time - we as affiliate marketers are selling products to people to whom we truly cannot relate. Case in point: offers for women (diet, teeth whitening, clothing coupons, dating). Most affiliate marketers are men and we run campaigns to those offers guesstimating what will “probably” work best. This is where our creativity most often limits to checking out what others are doing, replicate, and hope for the best.

But there is better way to get around this. A way to become more creative with your creatives. What you need to do is sit down and try to BECOME your average target buyer. And I don’t mean dressing like them or getting fat just for the sake of it. I mean - try to envision what sorts of desires and fears this person has.

You may already be familiar with the concept of user personas (or “buyer personas”).  Our old friend Wikipedia describes a persona as:

A persona, in the word everyday usage, is a social role or a character played by an actor. This is an Italian word that derives from the Latin for “mask” or “character”, derived from the Etruscan word “phersu”, with the same meaning. Popular etymology derives the word from Latin “per” meaning “through” and “sonare” meaning “to sound”, meaning something in the vein of “that through which the actor speaks”, i.e. a mask (early Greek actors wore masks).

Note the words actor and mask. If you can grasp the underlying meaning of this in the context of identifying with your sales prospects (your landing page visitors) - you are already ahead of the crowd.

For every product out there - there are potential customers wanting to be served. Your job is to hunt them down and serve them exactly what they want. And I’m not just talking about giving them the “lowest price” or the “most bang for your buck” either. I’m talking about giving them what they deeply desire within. All people want to improve their lives to some extent. Whether you’re living in cardboard box - or in a mansion. You’re still gonna want change and newness in your life.

- Fat people wanna get thinner. But it’s not about losing X number of pounds or being healthy. On a deeper level, it’s mostly about acceptance and respect from other people. For improved life quality. Feeling attractive and wanted. Not the opposite.

- People with money trouble want more just than the money. It’s not about amounts or high-figure incomes - but rather about having freedom from stress and feeling tied down. Money in itself is just a “thing” and numbers are just numbers. But money so tremendously affect our quality of life.  It dictates what people can or cannot do with their life.

- Teenagers love “personality tests” (like IQ/Crush offers, etc). Why? Because they are often insecure about who they are and how people perceive them. It’s really about reassurance and feeling adequate. Not about the “tests” themselves.

You may notice a pattern here… On the surface, we think or talk about what we want in tangible / measurable terms. But what we want cannot be measured. Sometimes not even expressed in words.

So instead, consider this WAY more efficient approach to targeting.

1. Based on what you know about the niche and offer(s), identify your target market and do some elite research before-hand.
2. With the data you gathered on demographics, sit down and write down a description (a miniature biography if you will) on the most typical buyer of this product.

---

Here is an example:
Product: $190 Coach handbag
Target demographic: Females, mostly caucasian, dominant age group 18-30, single, no kids, some college level education, low to moderate income level. Highly internet-savvy.

Target persona: Jenny, a white female, 26 years old, living in her 2-bedroom apartment and working as a sales representative at a major marketing firm. Jenny is single, but she’s goes out on the weekends to clubs with her friends in hopes of finding the prince of her dreams to settle down with. She still enjoys her single life though, and want to take it all in for a few more years before she sees herself settling down to start a family. She is well-versed on the internet, having profiles on all the social networks and reads all the major celebrity blogs and gossip sites daily. Jenny is also used to shopping online.

Becoming Jenny: What is it that makes her ‘tick’ from day to day? How does she want her friends and family to see her? Again, think not in terms of physical attributes - but rather what she wants them to THINK about her when they are around her. She wants to impress, to glow, and to feel like a girl in every sense.

Girls like her love to shop, but it isn’t just for the sake of shopping. It is a means to stay on top, up to date, and not to say the least: up to par. With a female audience, there is often the element of competition. Women are very competitive by nature. We’ve all heard of girls wanting to bring a not-so-hot girlfriend with her to a club - just so that she herself can look even hotter in comparison.  Buying things like this purse for herself will make her feel “up to par” with her competition. Jenny wants the other girls at the mall to be at least a bit jealeous, as if she is saying to them “now you girls stand a lesser chance than me of getting a date…just check out my new competitive advantage!”

Your approach: Jenny comes across your ad on one of the places you’re running traffic. She sees your media buy banner, your ppv popup, your ppc text ad, or whatever. In those ads - the initial approach is still A.I.D.A: Get her attention and interest first and foremost. It’s ok to use more measurable terms here. The ads can mention price (if it’s a selling point), free shipping (if applicable), offer end date, etc. - all tangibles. And all “surface” factors, like neon-lights to attract her eye.

Ok, so you reeled her in and she is now ready to check out what your landing page has to offer. As you should already know - you now only have just a few seconds to grab onto her attention and hold on to it. You have already done your homework on a good landing page design, and so your headline works well transitioning her from seeing the ad to telling her what this offer is all about.

And now to the ‘meat and potatoes’… Knowing Jenny’s inner reasonings for interest in your ad, your landing page copy should attempt to connect to her senses, and convince her that there is no reason why she should not be ordering. Your copy connects with her feelings and emotions. Your copy is only moderately focused on the features of the purse. Because although her logic side of the brain wants to justify the tangible value of this purse, her emotional brain loves a good flirt. Her emotional brain already knows how good Jenny would feel strutting this purse, and it only needs enough conviction to owerpower her logical sense.

So, knowing Jenny’s persona, you write almost as if you are selling directly to her:

“with this very feminine new handbag by Coach, prepare to have heads turn the next time you go down to the mall”

“..it looks and feels exclusive. Pamper yourself! When was the last time you did that anyway? It’s a known fact that men are very attracted to women who glow with confidence and appeal. You can surely find a cheaper handbag at Sears, but will it make you feel like a proud woman?”

And don’t forget your images. The lazy approach is to slap a catalog photo of the purse and hope for the best. But if you wanna up your game - think about your persona again. Brighten things up! Use images that express benefits and not features. Feelings. Not facts.

Think about it - why are fashion models used to display (wear) clothing and accessories? If it wasn’t for the people’s need to identify with and imagine how they would feel like wearing them, we could just have pictures of the items by themselves and models would be replaced by dummy mannequins. Celebs always work well too..

Maintain your ‘connection’ with Jenny throughout your copy. Walk away from it for a while and then read it again with your Jenny mask still on. Try to force yourself not to think like a marketer when you look it over.

It’s tempting to ask yourself;
- will this paragraph convert better if I do this?
- do I mention the keywords enough times?
- I wonder how that headline will affect my click through rate?

But step out of your marketer for a moment and as Jenny would, ask:
- how would this purse look matched with my beige boots?
- will my friends become bitter with jealeousy, or proudly envious?
- will Steve give me an extra look next time I see him at the coffee shop?

---

Another example:
Service: Online Stock Investing and Trading Service
Target demographic: Males, dominant age group 35-50, married with children, technical or business oriented college education, moderate to high income level. Computer savvy to some extent, but do not frequently do big purchases online. Interested in, but somewhat skeptical about online investing and risks.

Target persona: Clark Wagenheim, a mid-level manager at a manufacturing plant. Clark is 46 years old and lives in a typical suburb with his wife, three kids, and two dogs. He lives for his family but is often too occupied with his job. He hopes some day to retire before normal retirement age, but his main dilemma is lack of time to appreciate time off. If he could only supplement his income enough to afford some real vacations or get rid of that damn mortgage.

Becoming Clark: As is the case with most people for one reason or another - fear of something is what controls Clark’s life. Fear of having his best years with kids while they’re still kids slip away from him. Fear of losing momentum towards his financial future. How will his next 10 years look like? Will they need to downsize their home in order to afford their lifestyle? If so, what would be the consequences for his wife and kids? Is his wife really proud of him deep down? These things are always in the back of Clark’s mind. As the provider and man of the house, Clark has fears he wants to convert into security and worry-free comfort. He knows he should put his money into investments. Some of his friends already have.

Your approach: As in the previous example, you set up ads like normal and following those same principles. It’s on the landing page we got our chance to connect and ‘talk’ to Clark. Our mission is to gap the bridge between fear and a solution. He came here in the first place because he wants to end or resolve his fears. Only on the surface does he care about how many dollars he can expect to earn per month, or what the return rates are on average. As with Jenny above - facts and features still play a role, but in order to convert better we need to first get to the bottom of Clark’s issues.

Clark’s mind wants deep down to have security. We will speak to his business-oriented and logical mind in numbers. And of possibilities for what the numbers can do for his bottom line with time and family. Make him associate and relate to others in his shoes.

“our mutual fund offerings are most popular with investors like you - people who want to take charge of their personal life and provide a stable return for years to come. If this is your first time spending some of your income on investing, we understand that it can seem a bit complicated at first. But we can also assure you that any question you may have are already answered in our help section and among our large and growing member base of satisfied men, women, and families.

It is up to you to decide how you spend your new investment earnings. For example; How many years has it been since you took your friends or loved ones on a well-deserved vacation? Playing the lottery or hoping for a raise at your job is the least likely way of getting there. Follow your heart, and achieve more freedom with the safest method to secure your family’s financial future - through our high-return, low-risk investments.”

Remember all the way through your copy that Clark has the family at stake here, and that he does have something to lose (Unlike Jenny up there who is young, single and only out $199 if she regrets her purchase). So being deceptive is not going to do you or Clark any good. Instead focus on reflecting the sincere nature and legitimacy that Clark demands. Instill trust and identify with his most inner “wants”.

---

It should go without saying that the user persona approach will save you money upfront when launching your campaign. Now let it be said that going through this for direct-linked, or short-form lead campaigns might not be worth your time. In those cases, consider the target persona when you set up your ads.

Identifying and developing visitor personas is worth the time when you are creating landing pages, auto-responders, or other material that demand more time from the reader.

Unless you have totally misjudged your audience, and if you’ve done your homework, you should be hitting the nail way closer than most of your competitors right from the start. There will still be room for split-testing and optimization of course, but you can waste less money and time on finding out what works in your ads and copy. Money saved is money made. Most of this might read like common sense to you already, but are you actually practicing it? Think of it as a short-cut to higher ROIs.