Using Personas to Understand Trust

Do you use personas to help build your marketing plans? If so, you aren't alone. But do you also use them to understand and build trust? (Most don't.)

Personas are usually built to understand the details (and motivations) of a particular segment. Experienced marketers know the typical persona questions: Who are they — demographically and psychographically? What service or product features are important to them? What challenges do they have? Where are they located? How do we reach them?

But what about trust? Here are a number of other questions that should be asked:

• Who else (competitors, referral sources, etc.) does this persona currently have trust relationships with? How were they developed?
• What type of mechanism would build trust with this persona?
• With this persona, do you compete on price, expertise, or trust?
• What is the key interaction in your marketing and business development process that builds trust?
• What is the key interaction in your operations/delivery process that "cements" trust?
• Is there a part of your marketing or operational processes where trust is sometimes lost with this persona?

Examining trust from a persona's perspective can expose differences between different segments, and can result in very different marketing and operational priorities. More importantly, making trust more central can build a more loyal group of advocates... and ultimately, more referrals.

This Week's Action Plan:

No need to completely shift your marketing strategy — just add a bit more trust into it. This week, choose two of the trust questions above, and answer it for each key persona.