The Importance & Power Of Personas

Darragh Toolan Senior Channel Consultant | HubSpot@2oolan

#dubHUG

THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IS ANOTHER PERSON

BUSINESS IS ALL ABOUT RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN PEOPLE

people are not segments

Belief.Belonging.Mattering.Making a difference.

How can you make remarkable content if you do not know who you are creating it for?

PERSONASPersonas are archetypes that describe the various goals and observed behaviour patterns among your potential users and customers.

Where To Start…• 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 pain points?• What do they value most? What are their goals?• Where do they go for information?• What are their most common objections to your product or

service?• How will you identify this persona?

Tactics to add to this…• Surveys• Your network• Interviews• Sales team• Customer service

UNDERSTAND BEHAVIOUR

Developing a Persona ExampleMD MARK

• Managing Director or Owner of business• Is busy and time poor• Uses traditional offline marketing• Is brand conscious• Is 45 – 55

…it needed a bit of work.

WE WANT TO USE THIS TO INFORM OUR CONTENT CREATION

…now we are talkingMark has a busy day and rarely has enough time to get everything done. In house hassle takes up time as staff issues distract. He often stays late to catch up.

Marketing can often be affected by lack of time to oversee, he could do a better job than staff but hasn't the time.

Uses traditional marketing a lot, particularly printed material. Would love to be able to see a measurable return.

Brand Image is very important, he is keen for the company to come across well, to stand out from the crowd.

Needs help to get marketing finished on time and on budget to a high standard.

Uses Google a lot to keep up with the latest marketing trends and seeks the opinion of networking buddies and other MDs and business owners.

Wants to be able to get home earlier to put the kids to bed.

Relaxes by playing golf, going to the gym when he can and likes to spend time with the family.

Likes to be able to afford one big holiday a year somewhere warm where he can get away from it all. And be sure that the company is still marketing itself properly and effectively whilst he is away.

This in turn informs our WHOLE content creation strategy• The MDs Guide To Bringing Measurability To Your Online Branding• How To Ensure You Keep Your Company Brand Consistent In The

Online Environment• The Top Five Threats to Online Branding That MDs Need To Know

About• How Wearable Tech Will Affect Online Branding In 2015• 3 Great Tips On How MDs Can Increase Online Branding Success• How Managing Directors Can Increase A Company’s Brand Visibility

Online Through Social Media

“How An MD Can Spend Less Time On His Marketing and More Time On The Golf Course”

Personas are not…• Specific Real People - specific people have idiosyncrasies and

use cases that may not be common

• Influenced By Changes In Technology - because personas describe patterns of behaviours and goals

• Roles - there's overlap between personas and roles, you can have multiple personas with the same role or one persona with different job titles

• Static – personas need to evolve and change over time and need to be re-visited

STREAMLINES OUR LIMITED TIME + RESOURCES

personas = APEX of content creation

instead of yelling at the masses, the marketer has no choice but to choose their audience…choose effectively…

Questions?