“Evil” Best Buy Develops Personas
Flip through Best Buy’s Personas or Customer Profile
Oh no! The secret’s out.
Best Buy actually took the time to profile their customers with the intention — GASP — of selling more to them. The Consumerist finds this somehow disingenuous, that one of the biggest consumer electronics retailers on the planet is not interested in selling to customers that aren’t profitable.
Maybe it’s not OK for Best Buy to do this, but do you feel some moral obligation to sell to anyone, even if you don’t make money? I don’t.
According to writer Meg Marco, Best Buy’s sins include catering “only to its most profitable customers, or ‘angels.'”
That sounds like a pretty good idea to me.
Keep reading, and I’ll lay an even bigger shocker on you.
We All Carry Personas Around With Us
The truth is, that The Consumerist has a set of personas. They just haven’t written them down. A quick review of their content will tell you that one of their key personas is the angry, cynical or distrustful consumer who likes to rant, and who will spread The Consumerist’s message to their friends via email, Digg, StumbleUpon, etc.
This is how they grow their business.
These crazed consumers are their “angels.” Meg may even see someone like me — a marketer — as a “demon” on their site. The Consumerist content is targeted, relevant, and engaging, but only to those readers who will help them sell more and more advertising.
That is the power of personas, and you can use them in your business too if you want to sell more or generate more leads.
A Scandal in the Making
Here’s the shocker. I have a set of personas for this blog. And I’ve even gone so far as to write them down.
Yes, it’s a scandal in the making. I can already see the headlines:
Exclusive: The Conversion Scientist Seeks to Grow Audience!
Blogger Targets Content Away from Uninterested Readers!
If you’ve read this far, you’re probably one of my angels. I write for you and seek to provide value to you. You specifically. I’ve created my personas so I can target my topics and writing style to you. I think this will make you read more and share my stuff with your friends.
This is how I grow my blog.
I’m going to introduce you to my personas in the course of this series on conversion Web strategies. Don’t miss a post.
Do you think you will see yourself in them?
Click here if you would like to know how personas can mean bigger online projects. Thanks to Britton Manasco of Illuminating the Future for sending me this.
Expertise: conversion rate optimization, AB testing, marketing strategy, digital marketing, analytics, landing page design, computer programming, entrepreneurship
Speaking: IBM, Inbound, LeadsCon, Content Marketing World, Affiliate Summit, and more
Books and Training: Your Conversion Creation Equation, Video CRO, Marketing Videos that Convert, CRO Best Practices
As Seen On: ClickZ, Search Engine Land, Marketing Land, Conversion Sciences Blog, Intended Consequences podcast
Education: Texas A&M University, BS Computer Science and Management
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[…] which are profiles of the most important visitors to a Web site, the “touch point.” Best Buy uses touch-point personas for its stores. A touch-point persona gets its power from the fact that you profile a visitor at […]
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