Persona (update: site no longer open, perhaps this tool disappeared.) allows you to track demographic data for your website visitors. It does so by integrating with Sina Weibo. Anybody that is logged in to Sina Weibo when they visit your website can be tracked. Persona then gives you both agregate data and data on the specific users that visited your site.
In the screenshot below, you can see it includes an overview, as well as detailed data on users such as their IP, location, page viewed and Weibo username.
Other pages show further demographic info such as gender and demographics, as well as data on what they did on the website, such as their page visit history.
So, how might marketers use Persona?
Here are some ideas.
1) Understand Your Market Better, Adapt Marketing
With better demographic info, you should be able to better understand your market and adapt your website and marketing efforts accordingly.
As a simple example, you might have your homepage copy tailored towards female buyers but then learn from Persona that male visitors make up 60% of your web traffic.
With that in mind, I’d need to test it out for a given project before being sold on the idea. The reason being that I’m not confident that the demographic data of Weibo users is an accurate representantation of all web users. I’m sure this would vary based on the industry and marketing channels used.
2) Follow Up With Weibo Contacts
Now, this is what I would be most interested in. With Persona, you actually get a full list of Weibo users, and it even links directly to their Weibo pages. Just click through and engage those users!
If there was some way to do this automatically, that could be awesome. Imagine, when a Weibo user shows interest in your produt but leaves your site, they receive a tweet with a special promotion. It’s like re-marketing, but more direct and more personal.
And, Persona says they have something like this in the works already.
Overall, I found that Persona has some great data. But the site and UI are rather beta-ish at the moment, if that’s a word. Of course, it’s the data that is most valuable.
I’d also love to see more pricing data on the site, including a pricing plan suitable for small businesses. At a minimum fee of 500 USD/month, I consider it out of the range of smaller businesses or individuals looking to test the Chinese market.
Have you seen other tools like this?
Or, do you have other cool marketing tools to share with me?
Let me know, because I’d like to share more tools on the blog.