PERSONAS
OF I N T E R E S T

HOW IMAGINARY CHARACTERS CAN HELP YOU TARGET YOUR MESSAGING

Your district has so many diverse stakeholders you need to reach and satisfy. But depending on the size of your community—and of your communications department—that may seem like an impossible task. You can’t always consider the nuanced wants, needs and priorities of every single person who lives in your community, but you can boil those incredibly diverse individuals down into some major archetypes. In the private sector, these archetypes are called personas. 

What are personas? 

A persona is an imaginary character that represents a specific subset of your audience—an amalgamation of different members built from qualitative and quantitative data about that group. Simply put, no group is a monolith, and building personas helps you understand what makes each subset of your audience unique. They’re designed to show you how one group’s needs and wants may differ from those of another so that you can tailor your marketing strategy to respond to those varied priorities.

In the private sector, marketers use product feedback to build personas. For example, Apple’s primary target audience is generally middle- to upper-class consumers who are willing to pay more for high-quality products and a great user experience. However, as its customer base has grown, so have the number and types of personas Apple markets to. Let’s say Apple conducts a customer survey and discovers that a subset of their customers are parents who rank their child’s safety as a major concern. Apple’s marketers may choose to highlight parental control features to that group of customers.

In your district, you can create personas that are realistic models of all the people who interact with your schools—teachers, students, staff members and parents. You can then break down these groups further by collecting demographics, media preferences and other personal information to tailor your approach to each audience segment. Personas are incredibly useful, not only because they help you understand different subsets of your community, but because—if done well—they can also help you shape a marketing strategy for engaging and attracting new community members. But how do you create them? 

Conduct quantitative and qualitative research. 

Personas are only useful if they are actually representative of your audience. They have to be modeled on real people using real data, not on assumptions or stereotypes. If you’re a one-person communications team or your department is already at capacity, it may feel overwhelming to gather all this information—much less to target subsets of parents separately. But technology can and should support you here, with everything from collecting and analyzing data to reaching out to specific groups.

You can often collect quantitative information such as age, gender, location, language preference and media habits from your school or district website, app, or social media platforms. Use qualitative surveys to gather more information, like preferences, frustrations, personal goals and challenges. For example, you could send a questionnaire to families to determine why they chose your school over others. Knowing what is important to them will allow you to continue showing up in the ways that matter. This will also give you invaluable insight into how to market to potential families like them. (For more on conducting community surveys, check out "Designing a Communication Survey.")

Break stakeholders down into smaller segments. 

How did demographics like age and income level, for example, affect why families chose your school over others? Busy working parents of young children will likely be more concerned with after-school care and transportation than other parents. And because they’re on the go, you might find these same parents are more likely to interact with your district on their mobile devices. 

To be clear, these are merely conjectures. It’s up to you to collect the data—some of which might be surprising—to create realistic personas that accurately represent subsets of your audience. 

Bring your personas to life. 

Now that you have grouped your community into segments, create characters to represent each of those segments. Name them. Describe them. Be as specific as possible with details like your persona’s job title, pulling from real examples in your data. Of course, not everyone in a certain group will have the same job—but the more specific you are, the more realistic your persona will be. 

For instance, Hurried Harriet is a single parent of a middle schooler. She is a 38-year-old lawyer who earns $80,000 a year and lives in an apartment in the city. She stays up late on weeknights shopping on Instagram—but she prefers to receive school communications via text. One of her biggest concerns is that her son spends a lot of time alone. She ranks mental health support as one of the most important elements of his education. 

Bringing Harriet to life lets you relate to her like a real person, which in turn helps you put yourself in her shoes. When you view your school district through Harriet’s eyes, you can broadcast your strengths back to her—and the subgroup she represents—in a way that speaks to her priorities and in the style of communication she prefers. 

Remember: Audience personas like Hurried Harriet don’t just help you better communicate with the stakeholders they represent. They also show you which strengths to highlight when communicating with prospective parents who share Harriet’s priorities. After all, the better you can understand your different audiences, the better you can serve them.