25 Designing For Your Audience II

Recall the earlier sections from this open textbook where the concepts Personas and the Spectrum of Allies were discussed. Through understanding the differences between active and passive personas, and how to categorize key players will enable an NPO to effectively shift support to the organization during a campaign. The next step is to apply these concepts to action so that you can develop a stronger understanding of your audience’s behaviour as well as their needs and wants.

Example of a Creative Brief Persona

1. Recall our persona examples

Passive Ally Persona: Multichannel Consumers (Social Connoisseurs)

• Offline too! Reach them at offline touch points and invite them to participate in online social media.
• Friendlies. They influence to some extend via normal friend-to-friend engagement.
• Takin’ it easy. Due to their level of activity, their sphere of influence is not a dominant part of their persona.

2. Create a persona card to inform your design decisions

Persona Card

“Donations are effective. They progress movements and advance change in society.”

Background

Eris is a marketing graduate, devoted to philanthropy and supporting local initiatives. Her motivations are personal and she believes in social good. She volunteers weekly at Apathy is Boring, mentoring youth and speaking from her experiences.

Relationship with Technology

Will use for professional connections (LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter).

Wants

• Staying busy and mentoring youth
• Racial justice
• Diversity in our communities and peace in the world

Pain Points

• Being provided with too few options
• Waiting in lines for anything and wasting time
• Skeptical of corporate messaging that seems ingenue or inauthentic

Hobbies

Mindful meditation and/or yoga

Critical Thinking

What other aspects make up Eris’ persona? What is her typical day to day? How does she get involved with NFP organizations.

3. Create your designs – informed by steps 1 & 2

• Persona considerations
  • Enjoys multitasking but hates wasting time
  • Prefers visuals over text
  • Skeptical of corporate messaging (inauthentic)
• Campaign design
  • Highly visual
  • Clear and concise messaging
  • Storytelling messaging from real people (authenticity)
  • Call to action for medium-level engagement

Example: Facebook post

Consider values:

• Using imagery that represents the cause that you are supporting can be more authentic and resonate with your audience.
• Consider other value propositions that your allies may be interested in. If they do not feel that monetary donations can impact your cause, they may feel more compelled to purchase a community support package instead. Remember to provide different levels of engagement.

Example: Twitter post

Consider Tactics and Channels

Tactics have to do with the strategies/steps that need to be taken in order to achieve the end goal, and the channel is the path on how to get there. Upon reviewing the examples above, it is evident that personas and user values can play a large role in the design decision-making process because these groups of individuals are ultimately what drives an organization to keep moving forward. All the research on who you are targeting can also inform which tactics and channels you will choose to move forward with. Before you design, consider these questions:

• Which channels do your participant communities have access to?
• Which channels does your target audience/s follow the most?
• Which channels can best carry your message?
• Which channels will be most likely to encourage people to take action?

In the next two sections: Branding and Marketing, we’ll go more in-depth into how to design your brand and campaign based on all of the research you’ve done up until now.