At TPS, a recruitment company offering various traineeships, understanding the ideal candidates is crucial. Many companies develop personas based on assumptions, which can lead to strategies that don't align with the actual target audience. This often results in campaigns that fail to make the desired impact.

Our task was clear: develop a marketing strategy that truly resonates with the target audience for their traineeships. We aimed to gain deep insights into their motivations, doubts, and behaviors to create a strategy that would effectively encourage the right candidates to apply.

We started by conducting a Persona Workshop with each team, collaboratively mapping out the different target groups for the traineeships. This wasn’t just a theoretical exercise—this was a hands-on, collaborative process to create personas based on what we truly know about the audience.

However, we knew that assumptions alone wouldn't cut it. So, we went out into the field and conducted direct interviews with the target audience. This allowed us to validate the personas and refine them into realistic, data-backed profiles.

With these validated personas in hand, we could proceed with the following:

• Selecting the right channels for each persona: which platforms and mediums were they most likely to engage with?

• Tailoring the messaging in our ads: what triggers or objections should we address to get them to click through to the TPS website?

• Optimizing job descriptions: ensuring the content directly addressed the audience's core motivations and removed as many doubts as possible, especially around the traineeships’ benefits, requirements, and future growth opportunities.