Nonprofits understand what a persona is, why it's important to see through the lens of your audiences, and how to build useful and actionable personas to build more meaningful messaging and communications.

1. Tapp Networks, LLC. | Confidential 2022.
www.TappNetwork.com
How to Create Personas for
Your Digital Communications
Witt Godden, Director of Strategic Marketing
Tapp Network

2. Witt Godden
Director of Strategic Marketing,
Tapp Network

3. A Mission-Driven
Marketing and
Technology Agency
Empowering Organizations for
Good
www.tappnetwork.com

4. What we’ll cover today…
● The importance of using personas
● Why do we make personas?
● What is a persona?
● How do I make a persona?
● How should I use personas in my messaging?
● Q&A

5. What’s So Important
About Personas?

6. Important Definitions
● Target Audience - a particular group of people that marketers are
looking to reach (i.e. donors, volunteers, program participants, etc.)
● Persona - a single fictitious person that encompasses the key
relevant characteristics of your target audience
● User - a person who is interacting with your marketing materials
● Lead - traditionally a sales term, but can be used interchangeably for
“prospect”

7. The impact of using personas
56% of organizations have
developed higher quality “leads”
using personas.
Targeting cold “leads” with persona based
content is 58% more effective than
targeting warm “leads” without using
persona based content.
36% of organizations have achieved
shorter “sales” cycle using personas.
24% of companies gained more “leads”
using personas.
36% 24%
58%
59%

8. Why do we need personas?
1. Create messaging that will appeal to your target
audience’s needs.
2. Know where to reach your audience to build
awareness and drive them to your website.
3. Know what to write about in your content like
blogs and web.
4. Understand how to talk to your audience on social
media and email.

9. What Is A Persona?

10. From Many to One

11. Who uses personas?
Product
To remember who the
product is built for.
UX (User Experience)
To design optimal
experiences.
Sales
To inform and refine
sales strategies.
Marketers
To target audiences
and create meaningful
messaging.

12. How many personas should you create?
Primary persona represents the most
common goals and needs of your audience.
Secondary persona is typically when you
have 2 completely different kinds of target
audiences that you want to achieve the same
outcome.

13. What should a persona include?
● A name, image, quote I am a…
● Behaviors I do…
● Goals or motivations I want to…
● Needs I want to feel…
● Attitudes I really like…
● …and whatever else is important …and whatever else is important

14. Goals, Needs, Pain Points
Goals
What your persona is
ultimately trying to
accomplish
Needs
What your persona
requires in order to
accomplish these goals.
Pain Points
What prevents your
persona from
accomplishing these
goals.

15. Useful Personas Not-Useful Personas
● Rooted in reality.
● A 360-degree view of the
user.
● Differentiated
● Inspired by multiple
users, not a specific user.
● Help teams answer
questions about the user.
● Based on a single user.
● Not based on direct
feedback.
● Lacking in clear
differences between
other personas.
● Includes irrelevant details.

16. How Do I Make A
Persona?

17. Steps to Creating Personas
1
Conduct user research to discover the goals, needs, behaviors, and
pain points of your target audience.
2
Synthesize your research to uncover themes and patterns across
your target audience
3
Document patterns from your synthesis into a persona. Templates
are useful!
4 Validate the personas and keep them alive.

18. Conducting Research
● Google Analytics - you can see key demographics of individuals visiting your
website as well as what type of device they’re using.
● Social Media Insights - most social media platforms allow for you to analyze who is
currently following you.
● Lead Forms - it can be a little tricky, but including more questions in your forms on
your website can be a great way to collect more information about the audiences
engaged with your organization.
● Surveys - events are a great opportunity to collect qualitative and quantitative data
about attendees.
● Interviews - conduct interviews of engaged individuals who you believe encompass
your target audience.

19. Persona Templates
Name & Image
Demographics & Bio
Quote
Scenario
Goals Pain Points
Needs Behaviors

20. Tapp Networks, LLC, Confidential 2021, www.TappNetwork.com
Name: Garrett Giveback
Age: 32
City, State: Charlotte, NC
Occupation: Software Developer
About: Garrett Giveback is a software developer at a mid-sized tech startup in downtown Charlotte.
Originally from Buffalo, New York Garrett has been moving around for the last ten years or so after
college. After having been in Charlotte for a few years and starting to settle down, he is looking to
become more invested in his community around him. Garrett listens to podcasts to get his news
and spends his free time trying out new restaurants and breweries in the area. As a high-income
earner, Garett does regularly donate to nonprofit organizations and causes. However, he’s been
growing wary of large nonprofit organizations and if his money is really making a difference.
20
Goals:
Find an organization he believes in
that is making a difference locally
Needs:
To see his contributions make an
impact and to feel like more of a part
of the community
Donors/Funders: Individual
Pain Points:
Doesn’t always trust that where his
money is donated is being used for
the people in need

21. Keep Personas Alive
● Make posters and display them
prominently.
● Refer to them in presentations and
documentation.
● Use them in meetings and casual
discussions.
● Continue to refine them.
● When possible, validate them by getting
feedback from stakeholders and fellow
marketers and designers.

22. Using Personas to
Create Messaging

23. What content should I use my personas for?
Social Media Blogs Email Web
Consider your
personas goals, needs,
and pain points.
Be sure to diversify
your messaging to
touch each of these
through headlines,
infographics, and post
copy.
Looking at the
behaviors and other
aspects of your
persona can be a
great place to create a
series of long-form
content they will find
interesting.
Remember, it doesn’t
have to be JUST about
your organization.
Email is a great
opportunity to elicit a
change in a persona.
Segment your email
marketing materials
to address each target
audience and when
developing the copy,
think through the
eyes of your persona.
While your
organization will likely
have it’s own “tone of
voice”, be sure to hit
on the key
components of each
persona and target
audience.
Would you deliver the
same message to a
potential donor that
you would to a
potential program
participant?

24. Tapp Networks, LLC. | Confidential 2022.
www.TappNetwork.com
Q&A

25. HubSpot: How to harness your
CRM for Effective
Communications
March 22 1PM EST
Witt Godden and Janelle Levesque
REGISTER HERE

26. Thank you!
If you have any questions or wish
to speak to a Tapp expert about
your year website or marketing,
get in touch here or send an email
to techsoup@tappnetwork.com
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