A GUIDE to GAIn A bEttEr UnDErstAnDInG of YoUr IDEAL CUstoMEr’s nEEDs AnD DEsIrEs AnD IMprovE onLInE LEAD DEvELopMEnt

BUYER PERSONAS AND INBOUND MARKETING

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GIVEN the statistics we have about growing internet and smartphone usage, only 40% of small and medium-sized businesses have a website, or other online information to offer their customers and prospects.

Getting found online and ranked highly for the search terms that suit your product or service is critical. If you are not, you are missing an opportunity to develop new leads for your business.

This is even true of businesses that traditionally find new opportunities through referral or traditional print and direct mail methods.

The focus on search ranking has clouded the real issue of “engagement” which is a result of “click-through rates” (CTR).

The best method of improving your CTR is to focus on delivering valuable content through the channels your potential customers prefer.

OVER 50% OF THE U.S POPULATION USES THE INTERNET ON A REGULAR BASIS

75% of U.s. ADULts UsE tHE IntErnEt

164MILLION

53%

• Worldwide, we conduct 88,000,000,000 searches per month on Google.1

• 70% of the links search users click on are organic—not paid.2

• 46% of daily searches are for info on products or services.3

• 75% of users never scroll past the first page of search results.4

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Whatever the size of your firm, the challenge is to be fully aware of the stakeholder’s needs and desires. That understanding can come from many sources, including sales data, customer research and an understanding of cultural and technological trends that affect your products or services.

This summary of needs and desires are used to create buyer “personas”. And they should be the foundation of your online content development plans.

This guide is meant to help you through the process of developing buyer personas around inbound marketing efforts.

This guide was curated and edited by Tom Weinkle from learning materials originally developed by HubSpot.

Introduction

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CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

WHAT IS A BUYER PERSONA? 5

HOW TO RESEARCH BUYER PERSONAS? 9

HOW TO BUILD BUYER PERSONAS? 13

EXAMPLES: BUSINESS TO BUSINESS AND BUSINESS TO CONSUMER 16

NEXT STEPS 19

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WHAT IS A BUYER PERSONA?

CHAPTER 1

A buyer persona is a semi-fictional representations of your ideal customer based on real data and some select and educated speculation about customer demographics, behavior patterns, motivations, and goals.

Personas are representations of your ideal or “dream” client, built from demographic and psychographic data. A persona is a summary profile of a customer you have or want to have, that includes psychographic data about interests, responsibilities, challenges and goals.

While demographics and larger target market segments are obviously very useful, personas provide insights that help you connect to consumers in meaningful ways. Instead of trying to develop a message based on general information about age and income, personas give you information about specific challenges, gaps and needs that your product or service can fill.

Buyer Personas help Focus your Inbound Marketing Efforts

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Ideally, you should share the personas you develop with everyone in your company to help build a common understanding of how your product or service answers the needs of your “ideal” customers.

These profiles should help guide marketing communication planning and inform your sales efforts. They can also be used to keep your advertising and marketing firms focused.

Keep in mind that several “personas” can exist within a particular demographic segment, and depending on your product or service can easily have 10-15 unique personas.

> Applying the learnings

You may discover that a majority of the personas you are targeting do not rely on social media to get feedback about products or services, and instead rely on blogs. This would tell you to focus on getting the right information placed or discussed in the blogs those personas follow.

If your buyer persona understands visual information better than written, you might package your content in a digestible slideshow format heavily weighted with imagery that tell your product or service story.

Use buyer personas to shape your content offerings around the needs and goals of your personas, and deliver it to them in the form they prefer and respond to.

1. Common behavior patterns2. Shared pain points

(professional, personal)3. Universal goals, wishes,

dreams4. General demographic and

biographic information5. Not just fluff!

1. Specific, real people2. Influenced by changes in

technology3. Target markets4. Professional roles

> Buyer Personas are:

> Buyer Personas are not:

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Example of a B2B Customer Persona: “Marketing Director Mary”

Mary is 42 years old and has a Bachelor of Communications degree from Syracuse and an MBA from Babson. She is married, has 2 kids, and runs the marketing department at her company. She is an expert at outbound and traditional marketing, with 5-15 years of experience. She worries about her “brand presence” and hired a firm to redesign her website. She outsources a fair amount of activity because she has an easier time getting budgets than new staff hires approved. Mary craves education; she wants to know the latest in what works in marketing and why she should invest in one area over another. A lot of Mary’s job is “keeping things running” - supporting sales, updating the website, generating “more” leads (rarely with a concrete goal in mind).

Mary needs a simple, integrated tool that can help her do her job more effectively. If she screws that up, she risks letting down the sales team and her boss, the CEO. Mary dresses “business casual” and does most of her shopping at Ann Taylor. She uses the web for sharing photos with friends, email communication, and is starting to play around with social media accounts for her company. She uses LinkedIn, Facebook (for family photos), and Twitter (recently got a company account with <100 followers).

The persona is rich with information about goals, needs and challenges. A well-developed persona creates a clearer picture with more depth than pure demographic data.

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Every Marketing Plan

for Your Business Should be Tied to

Your Buyer Personas

this is Especially true When it Comes to Inbound Marketing

Not optional, very necessary

Help you relate to your customers

Guide product development

Build alignment across organization

Get your ideal visitors,

leads, customers

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HOW TO RESEARCH BUYER PERSONAS?

CHAPTER 2

> Be disciplined and methodical

The key to building reliable and useful personas is by making sure you ask ALL the right questions. Don’t make assumptions, or take shortcuts, because results and content plans will suffer.

> Work with existing customers and prospects, leads and those not yet aware of your services

Avoid the tendency to gather information entirely from existing customers. While this is useful, remember that you are trying to define a profile of an “ideal” customer. It’s likely you have good customers already, but your

“ideal” customer may not currently be aware of your product or services. Don’t shy away from trying to gather information from people who may not be your current customers. You may have to step out of your “comfort zone” and gather information from them.

> A single persona should be built from multiple interviews

It’s important to remember that a single persona is in reality a composite of multiple people. You are looking to establish common behaviors, needs and challenges among a group you wish to reach with your product or service.

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Components of the Persona

Defining buyer personas are crucial to successful branding, sales and marketing. After all, understanding and responding to your customer‘s needs, challenges and expectations is what turns leads into customers and ultimately promoters of your brand.

Persona Name

Persona Template

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What is their demographic information?

What is their job and level of seniority?

What does a day in their life look like?

What are their challenges? What do you help them solve?

What do they value most? What are their goals?

Where do they go for information?

What experience are they looking for when seeking out your products or services?

What are their most common objections to your product or service?

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

1 What is their demographic information?

2 What is their job and level of seniority?

3 What does a day in their life look like?

4 What are their challenges? What do you help them solve?

5 What do they value most? What are their goals?

6 Where do they go for information?

7 What experience are they looking for when seeking out your products or services?

8 What are their most common objections to your product or service?

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1. Age range2. Family (Married? Children? How old?)3. Education4. Hobbies

A Personal Background

1. What is your job role/role in life? Your title?2. How is your job/role measured?3. What is a typical day?4. What skills are required? What knowledge

and tools do you use?5. Who do you report to? Who reports to you?

B Role

C Company/Organization

1. In what industry or industries does your company work in?

2. What is the size of your company/organization? (revenue, employees)

D Challenges

1. What are your biggest challenges and pain points?

Key Questions to Building a Persona

E Goals

1. What are you responsible for?2. What does it mean to be successful in your role?

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F Where Do They Go for Research and Knowledge

1. How do you learn about new information for your job?2. What publications or blogs do you read?3. What associations and social networks do you belong?

G Shopping Preferences

1. How do you prefer to interact with vendors? (Email, phone, in-person)2. Do you use the internet to research vendors or products? If yes, how do

you search for information?

If you don’t take time to develop comprehensive buyer personas, the success of your inbound marketing will be limited.

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1. Interview Current Customers This is probably the easiest way to build your research. Speaking with existing customers also gives you a chance to enhance the relationship.

2. Research/Survey Your Customers If conducting 1:1 interviews is not practical, consider developing an online survey.

3. Use Lead Tracking and Form Data If your company already gathers information through the use of forms, landing pages or surveys, you may have a wealth of valuable information simply in need of collation.

4. Talk to Sales! Your sales team may be able to offer valuable insight gathered from anecdotal experience with existing and potential customers.

Sourcing your Research

How to Interview

· Best option is to set up in-person 1:1 meeting

· Set up focus group-based interviews

· Use GoToMeeting, Join•me, or other web-based conferencing tool

· Telephone interviews

BEST PRACTICES

CHAPTER 3

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> Focus on Behaviors

Example: “John is a recent graduate and just started a job as a researcher at the Dana Farber Institute. Second to science, his passion is taking photos as he explores the city to capture and share unique views. He would not consider himself an “artist” but loves to pursue and invest in this hobby.”

> Keep it Fictional

Best Practices

Kirsten JohnsonSenior Marketing DirectorWindStorm Shutters

Susan Davis Social Media & SEM Miller Engineering

Bruce HollubDevelopment DirectorEllis Academy

NOT THIS:

Marketing Mary VP, Director,or Manager of MarketingSmall or Mid-Sized Company

THIS:

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Use Pictures

Adding imagery representing your buyer persona’s preferences, lifestyles and habits can help clarify the information and makes for faster comprehension.

Tell Stories

Legal Assistant Lisa “Lisa is an upper middle class 45 years old who has 3 children—two in middle school and one in high school. She lives in a suburb of a large city and just finished paying the mortgage on the house she lives in with her children, husband, and 5 year old Golden Retriever, Violet. Lisa drives a 2006 Ford Explorer and has to leave work early twice a week to take her oldest daughter to basketball practice. Lisa works part-time as a Legal Assistant for a midsize firm. She loves to have lunch with her close group of girlfriends on the weekends and never carries cash. She has a Droid for work but an iPhone for personal use. but really only uses it for taking/sharing photos. When she does use the internet, she prefers Yahoo and has a Hotmail account for email.”

Food

Business

Travel

Shopping

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EXAMPLES: B2C AND B2B

CHAPTER 4

Personas are always going to fall into one of two categories: B2C (business to consumer), or B2B (business to business). Please see examples of each on the following pages to illustrate how different they can be.

As you complete your own personas, you may be surprised to uncover opportunities to offer NEW, MORE HELPFUL content to your prospects through your website, blogging, social media or other outlets.

Acting on what you have learned will lead to better click through rates, and ultimately more prospects and leads. This is true no matter what business you are in.

Examples of B2B businesses who can benefit from developing buyer personas

Examples of B2C businesses who can benefit from developing buyer personas

Law firmsAccountantsDoctorsManufacturingService companiesWholesalersHardware

Construction & DevelopmentEngineersAgricultural EquipmentPackagingSoftwareand more

Marine - boating, water sportsSporting goods - Manufacturers and RetailersHome Goods

GroceryRestaurantsClothingFurnitureand more

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> B2C | Recreational Vehicle Betty

What is their job and demographic information?

Betty has recently retired from an office job where she worked as a lower to mid-level executive. She is in her early 70’s and lives with her husband. Together, they raised a family of four.

What does a day in their life look like?

Betty lives in a suburb of a city. Her husband is also retired. They have been talking about traveling in an RV upon retirement for years – this is a long time dream of theirs. The adult children are self-sufficient and have been out of the house for long enough that Betty doesn’t have to worry. She’s been retired just long enough to be bored. While she doesn’t consider herself wealthy, she and her husband have substantial savings, and are prepared to enjoy their retirement.

What are their challenges/pain points?

Betty is worried about the logistics of travelling in a RV – how easy will it be to find utility hookups, where are the best places to stay if you have one, etc. She also wants something

comfortable as she plans on spending a lot of time in it. She has other retired friends so she wants additional sleeping space and she wants to make sure they have plenty of room for food and even cooking. She wants as much ease as possible when traveling.

Where do they go for information?

Betty likes to look at travel magazines and websites. She likes to plan destinations. She is on Facebook, which she checks once in awhile to keep up with the kids and friends. She set up a LinkedIn account 3 or 4 years ago, but hasn’t touched it since.

Common objections to products and services?

Betty likes to buy from someone she trusts. She takes her time making purchases, especially large ones. She feels like she makes smart purchase decisions and wants to feel like she’s buying a good reliable brand. Betty needs to see/feel/touch, and she needs to tour the actual model of RV she’s buying.

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> B2B | Small Business Owner Patricia

What is their job and demographic information?

After a successful career in professional services, Patricia has started a B2C organic bakery. She is in her 50s, married, with her children finishing college. She is college educated, has a secondary degree, but not technically savvy.

What does a day in their life look like?

Patricia gets to work early, and responsible for all aspects of the day-to-day operations of her business. Staying on top of employees, schedules, and production leaves little time for sales and marketing activity. The company website is basic, built by a friend’s son, and is e-commerce capable, but lacks any components that lead to engagement through inbound marketing. She has social media accounts, but doesn’t know how to leverage her networks.

What are their challenges/pain points?

Patricia is focused on the day-to-day, so she needs help with setting and achieving long term goals. She lacks strategic branding and marketing knowledge, and needs help developing new ideas to gain more customers and increase sales. She’s

reluctant to outsource marketing help because she’s a control freak. She’s looking for a way to do more inbound marketing but needs to find a consultant she can trust to guide her and bring some of the ideas she has to life. Having access to a software tool that allows her to reach more customers and keep them up to date with the bakery’s products and special offers would be very valuable.

Where do they go for information?

She doesn’t follow blogs, but follows respected business publications and visionary authors who write about culture and trends. She’s using social media to stay in touch with her customers and community. She’ll use google search or a trusted friend to find a well-respected, local marketing expert.

Common objections to products and services?

She doesn’t believe in “press this button” solutions. She needs to feel her investment in marketing services will come with very personalized attention, and wisdom to keep her from making a bad decision. She’ll pay for a quality consultant, but expects to get patience and hand-holding along the way.

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We hope you find this information about building personas helpful. Developed correctly, personas will serve as a “yardstick” by which to measure your plans for content development and ultimately Inbound marketing.

Understanding your company’s customer personas is the first step to developing leads through inbound marketing.

Once you complete your first group of personas, you will be well on your way to planning and offering valuable content with a clear picture of your “ideal” customers through the right channels.

Making the most of new content requires the addition of calls-to-action, landing pages and forms in various digital channels of your marketing efforts.

Conclusion

> Download Additional Reading

The 5 keys to generating leads on your website

Learn SEO from the experts

> Sources

1 Search Engine Land, February 20102 Marketingsherpa, February 20073 Sri, October 20104 Marketshare.Hitslink.Com, October 2010

ABOUT USVortex is an experienced team of communications professionals who assist organizations with building their brand, expanding awareness and growing markets through creative design solutions.

To learn more about how we can assist you with persona development, and content strategies and implementation, please contact us today.

vortexmiami.com305.667.6662

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