Case Study: Creating Personas
Research that informs design decisions
NameBright is a domain registration platform offering domain name management, registration, and related services.
I set out on a research project to help NameBright get to know its customers better. By digging into data and examining aspects such as demographics and behavior, I sought to uncover insights about our audience.
The goal was to understand what drives them so we can create products, services, and experiences that genuinely resonate with them.
The company lacked a clear understanding of its customer base. I wanted to use internal data to discover patterns and behaviors.
The first step was to ask our data scientist to provide me with a .csv file containing our customer information. Initially sorting the data by country, disregarding account size, reveals this graph. More than half of users are based in the US.
Mapping the data shows the majority of users are either English-speaking or ESL.
When I sorted the data by account size, the map shifted, revealing that large accounts are primarily located in Asia.
This long tail graph illustrates the distribution of assets, with one user holding the majority. The remaining accounts form the tail, with most holding just one asset each. We can also see that the 80/20 rule roughly holds true, with the top 20% of accounts owning 77% of all assets.
Dividing and labeling the asset holders into four main groups helps us identify and understand four distinct profiles: Institutions, Traders, Speculators and Passive Investors.
The finalized personas serve as a blueprint for understanding and empathizing with users. They become a reference point for marketing, design, or product development to guide decisions and tailor experiences.
Next Steps
Understanding customers helps a company to establish a distinct voice and build a brand strategy.
A strong brand strategy is not just about communication; it is about storytelling. NameBright can embody a compelling narrative that aligns with its customers' ambitions as investors. If the goal is to help them grow their portfolios and transition to a higher class of investor, NameBright should position itself as a trusted mentor and cultural authority in the domain space.
This requires marketing, sales, and customer experience to align with this transformative promise, ensuring that every interaction reinforces NameBright's role as an indispensable part of the investor journey.
