The Death Of The Target Audience

"In a world of fluid identities and real-time data, personas are obsolete. B2B is no different from B2C in the sense that we are marketing or selling to individuals. Those individuals are humans, with their own past experiences, preferences, prejudices and personalities-and all of those things impact the way they receive and interpret information, and their propensity to buy at any time. Rigid personas flatten complexity and miss nuances, and when overused, potentially even alienate prospects and limit revenue opportunities."

"Never mind the learning ability of AI, even algorithms know us better than we know ourselves sometimes. Take social media, for example: They've now long been using behavioral data to target dynamically and doing it so successfully that we are all addicted to the small computers we carry around with us. It's not actually the phone we're addicted to-it's the marketing!"

"The rise of machine learning and AI means marketers no longer need to guess. Does that mean we will get lazy and understand our customers less? Or does it just highlight that we never really understood them properly in the first place, because people just aren't that simple and we haven't had the ability to digest that level of complexity on a one-to-many basis until now-"Sophie, 34, loves yoga and oat milk." ... I think we're all a bit mor"

Personas reduce complex human behavior to simplistic avatars and are obsolete in a world of fluid identities and real-time data. B2B and B2C both involve marketing to individuals with unique experiences, preferences, prejudices and personalities that influence how they receive information and decide to buy. Rigid personas flatten nuance, risk alienating prospects and constrain revenue. Machine learning, AI and algorithms leverage behavioral and real-time data to target dynamically, accurately predicting intent without relying on static demographics. Marketers should prioritize data-driven, behavioral targeting over demographic personas to capture complex, changing customer signals and optimize engagement.

Read at Forbes