What is a Negative Persona and why is it useful to you?

You've defined your Buyer Persona, but do you know what a Negative Persona is? How relevant is it to your strategy?

How do you recognize them? What to do with them ?

Qu’est-ce qu’un Negative Persona ?

While a Buyer Persona is the fictional representation of your ideal customer, a Negative Persona, also known as an "Exclusionary Persona," is a representation of those you don't want not as a customer.

This is a profile made up of consumer habits and behaviors, demographics, insights, etc. that position this unwanted Persona outside your target.

Connaissez vos Negative Persona

What is its added value to your strategy?

Maybe it seems counterproductive to spend time getting to know people who will never be your customers? 

In reality, it can save you time and money by allowing you to focus your Marketing and sales efforts on the customers that bring you the most value. 

You will also gain clarity and transparency. A clear definition of your Buyer Persona and Negative Persona provides a solid foundation for your teams to work from.

How to recognize your Negative Persona?

A contact can belong to a Negative Persona for several reasons. For example: 

• It does not, in the medium term, have the budget that matches your product or service
• He is a student and is interested in your content for school work
• He is a potential customer, but his average basket size is very low, he is unlikely to buy again, he has a strong disposition to cancel/unsubscribe
• It is outside the geographic area where you deliver your product or service

In order to get on the trail of your Negative Persona's characteristics, it can be very helpful to meet them.

You can, for example, interview a sample of customers with very low average basket amounts.

You might also talk to customers with low satisfaction levels, their dissatisfaction might come from not fitting your target.

By identifying less-than-ideal customers and getting to know them better, you will identify common characteristics and habits, which will help you shape your Negative Persona and perhaps also better understand the motivations of your Buyer Persona.

What to do with a Negative Persona?

Your Negative Persona helps you better target your efforts, but not only that. Once you've identified them, don't brush them off with a wave of your hand!

There are several options for treating them:

• Turn your highly engaged Negative Persona into brand ambassadors

Among your Negative Persona you may find people who are not customers, but are highly engaged, often present on social-networks, and love what you're doing.

They are potentially your brand ambassadors, even if they will never buy anything from you. It's important to maintain a relationship with these people, they participate in your brand image (they may share your content, recommend you to friends, etc.).

• Transformez certains Negative Persona en Candidate Persona

The Persona method also applies to recruitment. It involves establishing a Candidate Persona, the representation of the ideal candidate.

A Negative Persona can hide an excellent Candidate Persona

What if your Candidate Persona is hiding in your Negative Persona? If they're not customers, but they still get excited about your content, maybe they're interested in your employer-brand ?

In fact, this is how the Inbound Recruiting came about! Recruiters at U.S. companies working with Inbound Marketing had the bright idea of creating Marketing Automation scenarios for prospective candidates, with remarkable success.

Identifying a Negative Persona is therefore a positive (!)

This allows you to be aware of the people you are not targeting.

Abandon the gray area by clearly defining your positive and negative Persona to save time and focus your efforts on the customers you really want.