How much better could your shopping experiences be — and get the end result you envisioned — if only the vendor could read your mind and suddenly “get” you?

There’s a way for businesses to do exactly that — to put themselves in their consumer’s shoes to intuitively meet their needs and expectations. It’s by developing a consumer persona, and it can give marketers a greater understanding of who their target audience is so their marketing is more impactful.

To put a finer point on it, it can give you a better understanding of who your target renters are so you can better market your multifamily community to them.

What is a persona?

A persona (also called a buyer persona or marketing persona) is a realistic archetype of a consumer based on qualitative and quantitative data. It’s a representation of a key audience segment; it isn’t designed to explain every type of renter there might be. It focuses on the needs, preferences and expectations that are similar to most other renters.

Each persona describes a real person with real goals and values. When you develop your persona, you add a real voice to the conversation about how to attract and retain renters to your apartment homes.

Why is having a renter persona so important?

A persona helps you focus your decision-making on the renter so that you can strategically cater to their needs, more deeply understand the renter you’re trying to attract, and relate to them as real people.

Zillow Group is customer-obsessed and conducts more than 20,000 consumer surveys every year to generate insights that help us bring renters and property managers together. At Zillow Group, our renter persona, whom we call Rachel, is our North Star. We're committed to her and her experience, just the same as you’re committed to your renters’ experiences.

Here are four steps to create a renter persona that can make your marketing more impactful and increase your lead conversion.

1. Take a guess

No, really. You already know a lot about your typical renter, so start with assumptions and educated guesses based on that. Does your renter have pets? What’s her typical age? Does she have kids? Did she move for her job? You know more than you think about your target renter, but use these assumptions to identify gaps in your knowledge.

2. Research, research, research

Here’s where you begin your deep dive. Conduct consumer and market research to gather both qualitative (e.g., interviews, ethnography) and qualitative (e.g., site, market and brand surveys) data. Talk to current residents, guests who come in to tour your property, and, if possible, renters who either opted out of signing with you or didn’t renew their lease. Look at analytics from your websites (don’t forget your social media accounts) and any internal data you keep.

3. Talk through the data

Gather a cross-section of colleagues to review your data together. Most likely you’ve all been renters, you all know renters, so talk about it. Which educated guesses are confirmed by your research? Where were you completely off base? What information is still missing?

Your goal at this step is to uncover insights for the renter persona. It will be a little like assembling puzzle pieces, where you explore the different parts and how they fit together.

Name and photo

If you were going to give your typical renter a name, what would it be? What does she look like? Putting a name and a face to your persona is a huge step to making her a real person.

Demographics

What’s the age of your typical renter — is she a millennial, Gen Xer or a boomer? Who makes up her household — is she single? Does she have kids? What is her ethnicity? What’s her annual income?

Needs and motivations in relation to housing

Why is she looking for an apartment home? How and where does she search for a new home? What makes her choose your property? Is she downsizing or upsizing? Is she looking for a shorter commute to work? Which amenities are her favorites? How long does she spend searching?

Environment

What are your renters’ concerns about the surrounding neighborhood? How do they feel about the crime rate? What are their opinions about the parks and schools? Are they happy with the available night life? What do they love most about living in your community? What’s their least favorite aspect?

High-level backstory

Put together a backstory for your persona, but don’t worry about being too specific. Just give a 50,000-foot view of who your typical renter is, what she’s like and a little about her rental housing joy and pain.

What matters most to her that’s most relevant to your property

In a brief quote, summarize what your typical renter values most when it comes to renting an apartment home from you. Be specific to your property and community.

4. Map it out

Now is the time to identify the big themes that keep cropping up in your insights. Break out your neon sticky notes and Sharpies and start bringing your data together to form the Big Picture.

• Identify themes and characteristics that are specific, relevant and universal.
• Organize the data into insights that are critical to understanding the persona; do away with minutiae that doesn’t have anything to do with who your renter really is.
• Make the data realistic. Let the insights guide you, and avoid basing your persona on opinions, current trends or one-off ideas that contradict what your research revealed.
• Describe motivations and expectations, not personal characteristics. Be relevant and serious.

It’s OK to fudge a little here because you can validate and iterate later, but don’t stray too far from the insights. And be brief: The goal is to have enough information to understand the persona, but not pigeon-hole her into a single “segment.” Remember that you’re not trying to personify all renters — only the ones who rent with you. Stick to the relevant and serious motivations that your research showed you. There’s no room to be cute or funny.

Care and maintenance of your renter persona

Now that you’ve created your persona, put her out on display. At Zillow Group, Rachel is never far away from our thoughts: A poster of her hangs in several places on every floor so we always remember why we’re here. Share your persona far and wide throughout your company. When you make updates, make a production of announcing them to your team because it will likely impact your marketing strategies and tactics. Everybody should know who your persona is by name and begin any big decision-making by answering “What would Rachel do?” before taking any action.

Remember that you’re never done understanding your consumer. It’s an iterative process that takes time and serious effort, but it will be well worth it to better hone your persona. Research shows that marketing personas make websites two to five times more effective and easier to use,¹ but less than half of B2B marketers (44 percent) use them.² Knowing your target renter almost as well as you know yourself — and anticipating their needs and expectations — makes it a lot easier to attract them to your community.

HubSpot, December 2014

ITSMA Online Survey: Increasing Relevance with Buyer Personas and B2I Marketing, March 2014