Last chance! Take advantage of all training rates in 2024. Save up to tens of euros. View offer We are all familiar with the principle of buyer persona by now : a way to filter an archetype of the ideal potential customer from your target group. Buyer personas represent the real, living and breathing people from that rather broad target group. And while the given persona in itself is hypothetical, the information on the basis of which he or she is created, should absolutely not be. Have you already created a persona for your organization and are you curious about how you can deepen it? Then read on.
Solid research
The persona that you develop for your organization should be based on facts. No assumptions and no noise, but hard figures and solid research. Why? The more realistic and well-founded your formed persona, the more effective your marketing efforts will be. Because in practice it is still quite difficult to gain real insight into who you are targeting, we would like to give you a number of tools with which you will immediately gain more insight into your target group.
Insight is key
Because that insight into your target group is crucial. Only with a clear picture of your intended audience on your retina, can you and your team ensure that the message of your organization reaches the right people. And that the same message actually gets across. So we want to know who that target group is, what they want to achieve, what moves them, what goals they pursue, how they think, how (and on what basis) they make a purchase. But we also want to know WHO they are.
To emphasize why it's important to know exactly who you're targeting, and that the trick to realistically personifying your audience is in the details:
buyer persona example ozzy charles
So that. It is clear that formulating a persona correctly depends on a thorough target group study. Including interviewing a number of actual potential clients, because details. The outcome of this will ultimately help to be able to communicate and sell in a much more targeted way.
Concrete figures
We hear you thinking, “Nice example, Ozzy vs. Charles, but what about the numbers?!?” Before we go any further, you want to know what the results will be. And we get that. Case in point: Skytap , a self-service cloud automation solutions provider . They defined their key persona(s), built a targeted content marketing strategy around them, executed successfully, and subsequently saw their results grow as follows:
124% growth in sales leads
55% growth in organic search results
97% growth in online leads
210% more visitors from North America to their website
Insight is key
By inventorying, organizing and then optimizing, you automatically gain a deeper insight into that persona:
1. Take inventory
Ask yourself a few questions that will give you more insight into the journey your potential customer takes before they come to you. For example:
Also read: Marketing automation: preparing qualitative B2B leads for sales
What does my (potential) customer's search look like?
What role do my competitors play in this?
Which contact moments make the difference?
What are my customer's doubts and motivations?
Write these points down and paint a picture of the search your clients are going through. Then contact a number of people who belong to your ultimate target group. Create a questionnaire and make sure you get the most comprehensive answer possible. A good follow-up question for answers is almost always 'why?'
The deeper you go into the substantiation of people, the more foundation you can lay under your persona. And the more targeted you can convey your message. Insight is key. Deep, deeper, deepest insight is a whole bunch of keys, let's say.
Feedback
Ask the same questions to a number of your current clients. Or, based on the questionnaire, create a survey that ties in with your organization's service or product, and which you send out to existing clients after a collaboration process. Tip: take advantage of this opportunity immediately by having your current clients give feedback on the collaboration. Two birds with one stone!
Measuring = knowing
Use tools like Google Analytics for your numerical substantiation. Measuring = knowing and Analytics can be a very informative source, especially when forming a persona.
2. Organize
Process the output of your research into formulating and sketching your buyer persona. And when we say 'sketching' we mean (almost) literally sketching. Choose a realistic photo, give the persona a name ('Marketing Mary', 'Corporate Kees' or 'Technical Tony' to name a few) and work out his/her profile as completely as possible.
Tip: have a poster made and hang it in a prominent place in the office. That way, the marketing department knows every day who they are 'doing it' for, and the sales department immediately gets a better feeling for the person they will be sitting at the table/on the phone with.
3. Optimize
With your most important persona clearly in mind, review your current content (strategy) and assess whether it sufficiently matches that main persona. In some cases, it may turn out that multiple personas need to be developed because the target group consists of a number of different types of people. No problem, after you have aligned your content with the most important persona, you can continue with the creation of a next buyer persona within the same target group, or you can develop one that fits a different target group. In principle, you could develop as many personas as you want for your target group(s).
And as is the case with many other things: a buyer hospital cio email list persona is never really 'finished'. The lifestyle, behavior, wishes and needs of clients can change, and you as a marketer will have to respond to that. It is wise to always take into account that the online climate is still developing considerably. This means that you will have to proactively move along with any changes, and if necessary, adjust the buyer persona(s) accordingly.
Pitfalls
As I said, the information on the basis of which your persona is created must be factually correct. Is your persona not authentic and therefore not representative of your target group? Then your fellow marketers will not take the persona seriously, your target group will not be able to identify with your marketing campaign and all the work will actually be for nothing. So make sure that you create a solid and authentic archetype. Skip that stock photo and that hackneyed quote (because your marketing colleague will certainly not fall for that), but go for a realistic reflection of your target group.
Better results
Finally, we want to tell you that developing a buyer persona is not something you have to do to keep up. Don't see it as a goal in itself. It is a method that you can apply to achieve better results when it comes to nurturing your leads, but also in terms of customer satisfaction, loyalty and/or revenue.