How often do we look at the world of blood donation through the eyes of the donor? Do we know much about them, or how they got here?
It is important to always keep in mind that each donor has a vastly different experience when stepping into a donation center. Some are first-timers who have no idea what to expect or how to navigate this new, sometimes scary world. Others are regulars who may benefit from acknowledgment and/or recognition for their contribution.
No matter who the person is, it's vital that we keep their perspective in mind as we interact and engage with our donor community.
To that end, we want to share an eye-opening presentation from Pan Phyu, Director of Donor Experience at Canadian Blood Services. Titled "Through Your Donors' Eyes: Using Personas for Journey Maps," Pan presented it this past May at the ADRP conference in Phoenix, Arizona, during an in-person education symposium hosted by our Terumo Blood and Cell Technologies Scientific Marketing team.
The focus of the presentation was to stop and consider the donor's perspective. "As our donors continue to evolve," Pan writes in her introduction, "it is increasingly important that we empathize with our donors to surpass their expectations."
The presentation focused on a method for getting in the donor's mindset: creating personas. This is a common marketing tool that lends personality to the process. "Personas are fictional and represent essences of real donors," Pan writes. "Each persona represents a group of donors with similar needs, behaviors, goals, motivations, etc."
Through personas, blood centers consider the range of backgrounds, attributes and experiences that different donors may have. Blood collectors then have a better idea of that individual's needs and engage more empathetically with the donor.
Key takeaways include:
- When working with donors, it is important to understand how messages resonate. For instance, the message and tone may be different for a longtime donor versus a newcomer, and for people with language barriers and/or different cultural backgrounds.
- Identifying personas can be based on individual donor profiles in your database and expanded to represent donor groups with similar needs, behaviors, goals and motivations.
- These personas help staff to empathize, understand and personalize their approach.
- Journey maps are another tool that, when used with personas, help caregivers improve and streamline the donation process, from start to finish, in a donor-led way.
Pan's presentation showed participants how to gather information for donor personas and create donor journey maps. You can download the presentation slides below.
If you have any questions about personas and journey maps, or need assistance with donor engagement, please contact Anna Razatos, Senior Manager, Global Scientific Marketing, by using the Contact Us button below.
Next: Improving blood processing and safety, a look at two case studies with thoughts from Marcia Cardoso, Senior Manager, Global Scientific Marketing.
Pan Phyu Bio
Pan Phyu joined Canadian Blood Services in January 2020 as the organization's first-ever associate director of donor experience. Previously, Pan spent over a decade in the financial industry at top-tier Canadian banks, where she spearheaded important initiatives that optimized customer experience and business profitability. Since joining Canadian Blood Services, she has focused her team's effort on foundational elements of the experience management ecosystem – demystifying perceptions of experience management and shifting mindsets towards a more experience-centric organization. Pan's team is not only working closely with colleagues to evolve insights into action, but also elevating processes into more deliberate human-centered designs.
Download the report here.