Personas Are Fake Customers. Here’s Where They Come From and Why They Are So Useful.
Personas are fictional representations of customer types, but they reflect the demographics, behaviors, goals, and motivations of people derived from real data.
Why Segmentation Is Sometimes Useless
Dividing a market into unique segments makes sense. But the statistical methods we rely on for segmentation often result in segments that are strongly differentiated in useless and misleading ways. A recent analysis of Facebook data by The New York Times illustrates this perfectly.
The Problem with Fancy Segmentation
Segmenting customers into subsets that have unique needs, interests, and priorities makes a lot of sense. The more obvious the segments are, the more it makes sense, so a priori segments are best. Big companies in one segment, small companies in another. Retirees in one segment, college students in another. You don’t need fancy K-means…
The Age of Algorithms
Doing “statistics” strikes fear in the hearts of many, so how about if we talk about “algorithms” instead? It’s a safer word because most people in the worlds of business and market research never have to take (or fail) a course in algorithms. Algorithms are central to the work that we do in business and…