2 Ways to Get Started With Personas
Written by: Howard Kaplan Posted in GrokDotCom
I was having a conversation with the experience team at a major "entertainment" company after my presentation at the Internet Retailer conference a few weeks back. We were discussing ways they could get started on Personas, and how to overcome the challenges they'd faced thus far. Given that this dialog took place just off-stage, we had no expectation of privacy. Then again, I had no expectation that well over 100 retailers would be so interested in this conversation as well. It became "the presentation after the presentation"–so much so that the conference producer had to politely ask me to take the impromptu mob outside into the main hall… sorry again, Kurt 
–and I promised all those who wanted to listen in that I'd write up my thoughts and take them to a more appropriate vehicle. So, without further ado…
1) Hire a firm to conduct research.
Level of difficulty: easy
Likelihood of success: minimal
Expect to cough up tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars on this research–and the wise marketer would do everything in her power not to entertain discussions of ROI (at least positive) from this exercise. Expect the resulting research to create beautiful-sounding Personas and make excellent posters to put up on the wall. In some organizations, you may even expect a raise for a job well done, but you'll profit more from selling all your company stock short. (Bryan chronicled this approach in his ClickZ column, but it's worth diving into even further, because the underlying question marketer's are asking when they hire a research firm is an understandable, but flawed one.)
2) Do some "work" yourself (and if need be hire a firm to come in and help wrap up)
Level of difficulty: medium (there's a process that can be followed, you just need to allocate the resources: time or money)
Likelihood of success: great