Loading...
Thumbnail Image
Publication

How to Use the Six-Step Digital Ethnography Framework to Develop Buyer Personas: The Case of Fan Fit

Fenton, Alex
Heinze, Aleksej
Osbourne, McVal
Ahmed, Wasim
Advisors
Editors
Other Contributors
EPub Date
Publication Date
2022-11-25
Submitted Date
Other Titles
Abstract
Background: One of the key features of digital marketing is customer centricity, which can be applied to the domain of health. This is expressed through the ability to target specific customer segments with relevant content using appropriate channels and having data to track and understand each interaction. In order to do this, marketers create buyer personas based on a wide spectrum of quantitative and qualitative data. Digital ethnography is another established method for studying web-based communities. However, for practitioners, the complexity, rigor, and time associated with ethnographical work are sometimes out of reach. Objective: This paper responds to the gaps in the practically focused method of using social media for digital ethnography to develop buyer personas. This paper aims to demonstrate how digital ethnography can be used as a way to create and refine buyer personas. Methods: Using a case study of the Fan Fit smartphone app, which aimed to increase physical activity, a digital ethnography was applied to create a better understanding of customers and to create and refine buyer personas. Results: We propose two buyer personas, and we develop a 6-step digital ethnography framework designed for the development of buyer personas. Conclusions: The key contribution of this work is the proposal of a 6-step digital ethnography framework designed for the development of buyer personas. We highlight that the 6-step digital ethnography could be a robust tool for practitioners and academicians to analyze digital communications for the process of creating and updating data-driven buyer personas to create deeper insights into digital and health marketing efforts.
Citation
Fenton, A., Heinze, A., Osborne, M., & Ahmed, W. (2022). How to use the six-step digital ethnography framework to develop buyer personas: The case of fan fit. JMIR Formative Research, 6(11), e41489. https://doi.org/10.2196/41489.
Publisher
JMIR Publications
Journal
JMIR Formative Research
Research Unit
DOI
10.2196/41489
PubMed ID
PubMed Central ID
Type
Article
Language
Description
Series/Report no.
ISSN
No print ISSN
EISSN
2561-326X
ISBN
ISMN
Gov't Doc
Test Link
Sponsors
Additional Links
https://formative.jmir.org/2022/11/e41489/