Data is everywhere. Big data, ambient data, real-time, benchmarking – there’s so much that there’s no one metric or one way of using it that works for every company or every industry. The data leaders are the ones who take risks, who look at all the information available and decide what matters right now. We’re spotlighting these innovators in this “Data that Matters” blog series. We’re talking to people in various roles across multiple industries to see how they collect, make sense of, and act on their data. Read the full series.

Here are some thoughts from Fred Ackourey, creator of Telegaleria one of the largest multicultural e-commerce websites in the US. Fred discusses the creation of personas and using real-time data specifically to target, reach, influence and convert specific audience segments to purchase.

We use data to define our customers through distinct, niche personas.

These personas are formed from both numbers and common sense. Numbers don’t lie, but you need to use your head to figure out what they should mean to you, how you should put them to work.

So we’ll start with a demographic and then create a profile of a typical, segmented customer with all the attributes of someone who would buy from us. For example, we’ll say, “The person we’re trying to reach for this particular offer in this particular channel is a 38 year old black female office worker with two children, whom she loves to spend time with, so she shops online during the day to save time, making most of her purchases on Friday afternoon.”

Then we tailor our content and offers to that specific persona.

Initially, it’s really trial and error. As soon as we drop a campaign based on that persona, we start measuring. We see if we hit our goals or not and then test to optimize that content from there – swapping out content, colors, images, times that people spend on the site, that kind of stuff.

This tailored content is released across all different channels – online and offline – wherever we think we can reach this particular persona.

Naturally, we have different metrics based on what action we want each persona to take and the goals of that channel.

To define those goals, we use the AIDA formula – it guides what we want to focus on in each channel.

AIDA stands for Attention Interest Desire Action, and each channel has the job of attaining or increasing at least one of those factors.

Some people still think your site itself is a funnel. But that’s just not how it works. Your site is just the tip of your arrow. And that’s where AIDA comes in. Your message starts way out in the online and offline world – not on your landing page.

We use specific channels for only getting attention, for brand awareness. And then our landing page is the point of closure. That’s where it ends, not where it begins.

We have to work like this because we’re so niche.

For instance, we rank #1 in Google on “sexy jeans.” That’s a niche customer – a very specific person who is searching for that keyword.

We can’t compete with the Amazons of the world because our product is niche, our site is niche, our audience is niche.

So everything is built off of these personas and every piece of communication is presented in a niche channel to reach and influence these people in a very specific way.

We’ll be covering a new company each week – big & small, media & not, data junkies & analytics allergic – so let us know if there’s someone you want to see featured. Hit me up at lauryn@chartbeat.com.