Personas: Understanding the 4 main temperaments

We’ve discussed the concept to personas in depth. We’ve reviewed the difference between personas and market segmentation. And finally, we discussed why personas are so important in the first place.

This blog will shed light on the 4 main human temperaments. There are many human characteristics and temperaments, all of which can be divided (for our purposes) into four main categories: logical, caring, aggressive, and implusive.  Each temperament requires careful consideration of the copy structure, tone and general lingo.  And each of your personas will have one or more of these temperaments. So how can you cater your site to satisfy these temperaments?

Let’s first look at these main four categories and see what each requires:

Logical

This describes someone who is extremely meticulous, methodical and detail-oriented. If someone of a logical nature enters your site, they will want to understand details about your product or service. They are the visitors that will read page after page of information on your site. They are also the visitors that will drop your site if you don’t present the answers in a logical, systematic, and easy-to-locate fashion. So your About Us page and your product or services description and methodology pages will be visited by the logical personality type. You can also expect that someone of this nature will take long (days or months) to make a purchasing decision. In the meantime they will be “shopping around,” keeping tabs on any developments or offers, and reading your blog (if you have one).

How to address logical personas?

If you were targeting such a person the site would have to address all the questions about the company, when the started, what other products/services they offer, their reputation, etc. Also, referring them to more information such as the methodology, about us page, or the blog is an excellent idea.

Caring

From the very nature of the word you can tell that this type of personality is impacted by people, because they care about and what people say. They are trusting. This personality type loves to read what others have to say about your product or service in the form of testimonials or reviews. They are also keen on knowing how many people have used the product and service. It’s important to them what others feel and say about your company because it will help them make a buying decision. In order to appeal to someone Caring provide as many testimonials, news quotes and numbers of clients as possible.

How to address caring personas?

Caring people tend to be impacted by other peoples opinions about a product/service. Some people base their buying decisions solely on reviews, whereas others would want to know every spec detail (logical). Caring clients would be swayed if you mention the number of people that have become a part of your company. They would love to see testimonials from credible individuals on your site as well.

Impulsive

Every site would love this personality because of their quick buying decision nature. Someone described as spontaneous is ready to make a purchase, credit card in hand, so you have a few seconds to convince them to take the plunge. If you don’t give them a reason to move on in your site, most likely you can be certain that within seconds they are gone. It’s all part of their personality. They are determined to make a purchase, and if your site doesn’t deliver than there will be another site that does! So what can you do to capture this visitor and convert them into a buyer? They need to see a few quick reasons why they should choose your product or service. So offer them benefits in the form of 3 or 4 extremely convincing bullets, for example.  Immediately following the benefits include a “call to action.” And finally, make sure that there they don’t run into any difficulties during the check out process, or loading time, etc.

How to address impulsive personas?

Impulsive buyers are an ecommerce company’s dream client. They are ready, credit card in hand, to make a purchase. Usually, if they are convinced within the first 5 seconds of landing on your site (especially if they are searching for a particular product) you can be certain they will become clients. How can you convince them? Layout benefits to the product/service right away in big bold bullets. Have great, big call to action button in a bright color so they can click and move along.

Aggressive

Especially, but not restricted to, dealing with B2B transactions and individuals higher up the food chain; you will be dealing with people very competitive in nature. These personality types strive to be the best by flushing out the competition. If they see reason that your product or service will place them ahead of the crowd than you can be sure that they will be loyal customers. So your duty to attract this type of personality is to give them good reason why your product or service is the best and what it will do for them. Giving them great incentives to choose your service or product in addition to great reason will help you land a contract with this personality type.

How to address aggressive personas?

Aggressive clients love to be the best, on the top. Your duty is to let them feel that they truly are getting the best service and deal in the industry. As a company you need to stay on top of things by remaining “competitive” thus offering that to clients. Excite your buyers with great deals, great prices, and great service.

Some things to keep in mind:

1. Depending on what you are selling you can exclude which temperaments you will be dealing with. If it is something rather expensive, whatever personality type you are dealing with, the likelihood of more methodical instincts will be present. That does not dismiss the fact that many spontaneous individuals still want to buy cars and diamond rings, however, you can expect them to ask “more” questions because it is a bigger buying decision and investment.

2. High value transactions (contracts with worth thousands) will be meticulously reviewed in a very methodical format. Smaller decisions you are more likely to have all 4 temperaments.

3. The ration of temperaments within a population is 30% impulsive, 30% logical, and the remaining are split between the caring and aggressive!

4. Within a single page, you need to have the language that can address these 4 temperaments.

Ayat Shukairy

My name is Ayat Shukairy, and I’m a co-founder and CCO at Invesp. Here’s a little more about me: At the very beginning of my career, I worked on countless high-profile e-commerce projects, helping diverse organizations optimize website copy. I realized, that although the copy was great and was generating more foot traffic, many of the sites performed poorly because of usability and design issues.

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