Download Search Engine Marketing Best Practices Managed Marketing Service

The Buyer Persona: The Basics
Managed Marketing Services
Karen Levy Newnam
Agenda
• The Buyer Persona
• Relevance in Content Marketing
• Best Practices
• Getting Started
• Putting Your Personas to Work
What is a Buyer Persona?
Characterization of your ideal customer
based on:
• Demographic Information
• Biographic Information
• Digital Footprint
• Common Pain Points
• Common Goals
• Purchase Behavior
Forrester Research Interactive Marketing Forecasts, 2011-2016 (US)
What Buyer Personas Are Not
• Real People
• General Job Titles
• Target Markets
• Hobbies
• All Inclusive
Why Should I Care
About Buyer Personas?
The B2B Buyer’s Journey Has Changed
The addition of new influencers and the demand for readily available content necessitate a
more collaborative next generation B2B marketing strategy.
Awareness
Satisfaction
Purchase
Interest
Evaluation
Consideration
70-90%
of the buyer’s journey
Is complete prior to engaging
with a vendor
10-15
pieces of content
prospects engage with prior
to making a purchase
5x
more dependent
on content than they were
5 years ago
Sources: Forrester and Nielson
Success Depends Upon Aligning Marketing to the New Journey
Hello
Solutions
Provider
Why are Buyer Personas Important
You have to know who you are
targeting in order to successfully
develop messaging and imagery that
motivates the prospect’s behavior.
The New B2B Buyer’s Journey
You have to determine the right content to attract, convert and close
Awareness
Satisfaction
Purchase
Interest
Evaluation
What Content in Each Stage Will:
• Attract a CTO
• Convert a CTO prospect to a CTO lead
• Close by turning the CTO lead into a CTO client
Consideration
Why Care About Buyer Personas?
Better-quality leads
Improved lead generation capabilities
Consistency of communication
Better product development
Best Practices
Best Practices for Creating Buyer Personas
Focus on motives behind behaviors
Pay attention not only to what someone is
doing but to why they are doing it
Best Practices for Creating Buyer Personas
Keep personas fictional but still realistic
No one has a one-size fits all customer, so you should not
define your persona by describing one real person
IT Mary
Chief Technology Officer
Mid Sized Commercial Company
Karen Newnam
SR Director Marketing Services
Mid-Market Marketing and
Marketing Company
Best Practices for Creating Buyer Personas
Choose one primary persona to begin
all other personas become secondary
• Remember the more personas you create,
the more content you need.
• Do you have the resources?
Personas (2) x
Personas (5) x
Buying Stages (4) x
Buying Stages (4) x
Buyer Questions
per Stage (5) =
Buyer Questions
per Stage (5) =
40 pieces of content
100 pieces of content
HubSpot: Introduction to Buyer Personas
B2B Buyer Personas – Content Marketing Essentials
This Seems Complicated.
How Do I Get Started?
The Process
Conduct
Internal
Research
Write
Your
Questions
Conduct
Surveys
&
Interviews
Analyze
Data
Create
Content
The Essentials
For personas to become useful tools, they
must be based on interviews gathered from
salespeople, customer service interactions
and the buyers (customers) themselves.
Personas must help us identify how we can
help buyers manage and expedite change.
That’s really what buying is all about.
Ardath Albee Why Marketers Are Keeping B2B Buyer Personas In the Closet
Consider the Buyer in General Terms
Industry
Role in the company
Demographic information
Purchase motivators
Purchase deterrents
Competitive alliances
Focus on What the Buyer is Trying to Achieve
What’s important to them and driving the change?
What’s impeding or speeding their need to change?
How do they go about change?
What do they need to know to embrace change?
Ardath Albee Why Marketers Are Keeping B2B Buyer Personas In the Closet
Focus on What the Buyer is Trying to Achieve
What’s important to them and driving the change?
What’s impeding or speeding their need to change?
How do they go about change?
What do they need to know to embrace change?
Ardath Albee Why Marketers Are Keeping B2B Buyer Personas In the Closet
I Have This Data… Now What?
Sample Template
BACKGROUND:
• Tenure 5-10 years
• Started as IT
manager
• Reports to CTO or
VP IT
DEMOGRAPHICS:
• Skewed male
• Age 38-56 years
IDENTFIERS:
• No admin gatekeeper
• Will take calls if
relevant
• Determines email
viability per subject
line
• No time for lengthy
marketing docs
• Will take time for
demo if relevant
• Risk adverse
• Concerned first with
ROI and cost savings
IT Director Dan
GOALS:
• Integrate business
and technology
• Champion
innovation
• Enable corporate
vision
• Enable cross
departmental
collaboration
CHALLENGES:
• Achieving goals with
tight budget
• Rolling out changes
with small staff
• Determining which
solutions best match
corporate needs
IT Director Dan
OBJECTIONS:
• We are not early
adopters
• I want to know someone
has already tested the
solution
• I don’t want to talk about
solutions that don’t
provide a timely ROI
ACTUAL QUOTES:
• I don’t want to have to
train the entire company
on how to use a
complex, new system
• I can’t afford to lose time
during implementation
IT Director Dan
Linking Personas To Marketing Messages
Now that you understand your buyer’s challenges, where they go for
information and what helps them make decisions in the buying process, it
is time to put that information to work.
Hello
Solution
Provider
Linking Personas to Marketing Messages
1. Use your personas as a baseline to
determine content needs
2. Use the data to customize content,
so it speaks to your prospects’
needs
3. Segment your prospects based on
persona, so you can align content to
resonate with your prospect’s unique
responsibilities and challenges
What’s Next
Learn More: There Is So Much Information Out There
buyerpersona.com
upcloseandpersona.com
Create Your Own Buyer Persona
1. Talk to your sales team
2. Identify customers
3. Conduct Interviews
4. Create one relevant persona
5. Share it with your MaaS team, so
they can customize your content to
that persona
Your Marketing as a Service Contacts
Dell
Cortney Doucette
Strategic Account Manager
[email protected]
508.416.1149
AT&T
Chelsea Albers
Marketing Account Manager
[email protected]
508.416.1139
THANK YOU
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