In order to develop relevant content in social postings, marketing messages, and web pages, you must know your audience. When you're trying to buy the ideal gift for someone, you visualize them and think of their needs while you are shopping or planning to shop. You run through a mental list of needs, wants, hates, loves, interests, and perhaps ambivalence. Building personas is the same exercise, just on a commercial level. Defining personas, or profiling and documenting the needs, wants, desires, and other attributes of each type of person who buys from (or interacts with) your company is a process that will help you to: Write relevant copy that is both engaging and useful to each member of your audience. Segment your lists so that messages to the list are more targeted. Develop triggered marketing campaigns that will nurture leads and convert them to customers. Create web pages that answer actual questions and address tangible pain points. In this document, we'll discuss the importance of profiling personas.

1. THE IMPORTANCE
OF PROFILING PERSONAS
IN ORDER TO DEVELOP RELEVANT CONTENT IN SOCIAL POSTINGS,
MARKETING MESSAGES, AND WEB PAGES, YOU MUST KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE.

2. Have heard of buyer personas, but don’t know why or
how they are used.
Need ideas for what to track in your persona
spreadsheet.
Need an example of a persona-building tool.
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Our publications are designed to help you identify
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YOU SHOULD READ THIS GUIDE IF YOU:
©2013 SPIDER TRAINERS

3. • Buyer persona
• Marketing persona
• Inbound marketing
• Outbound marketing
• User experience
• Marketing plan
• Marketing campaign
• Personal profile
KEYPHRASES
PAGE 1
©2013 SPIDER TRAINERS
When you're trying to buy the ideal gift for someone,
you visualize them and think of their needs while you
are shopping or planning to shop. You run through a
mental list of needs, wants, hates, loves, interests,
and perhaps ambivalence. Building personas is the
same exercise, just on a commercial level.
Defining personas, or profiling and documenting the
needs, wants, desires, and other attributes of each
type of person who buys from (or interacts with) your
company is a process that will help you to:
Write relevant copy that is both engaging and•
useful to each member of your audience.
Segment your lists so that messages to the list•
are more targeted.
Develop triggered marketing campaigns that•
will nurture leads and convert them to
customers.
Create web pages that answer actual questions•
and address tangible pain points.
INTRODUCTION
Buyer personas are fictional representations of your
ideal customers. They are based on real data about
customer demographics and online behavior, along
with educated speculation about their personal
histories, motivations, and concerns.
— HubSpot

4. Although often referred to as buyer personas,
personas may represent other groups as well, such
as the press, analysts, and investors. What’s more,
defining personas is not a marketing function, nor
are the personas used strictly for marketing. Profiling
your customers or visitors is a company function and
input from the sales department, customer support
team, and other customer-facing groups will
heighten understanding that will benefit the entire
organization.
You can be as general or specific as you choose when
drawing personas, but keep in mind that the more
specificity you provide, the more targeted your
messaging (or web-page content) can be. Definitions
can be tracked in a simple spreadsheet or database
application.
As valuable as this exercise is, it’s one thing to be
empathetic to your customers and draw them with
broad strokes as you see them, but this effort can be
advanced if you think of or involve your actual
customers. Contemplate the profiles your top five
customers represent and respond to the questions as
they would, or if feasible, ask if they would be willing
to complete a profile for you.
Persona building is not a particularly difficult task and
you don’t have to get it right the first time. Take your
best shot at it and refine as you go. Through testing,
tracking, and tweaking of your content, you will be
able to find and fill the gaps. If you need some help,
click here to access our B2B persona profiler or here to
access our B2C persona profiler.
Here are some ideas for what you might wish to
define in your personas. In most cases, you will at
least list their demographics, but beyond that
consider her or his:
Needs•
Interests•
Judging functions (thinking or feeling)•
Firmographics•
Job title•
Job description•
Level of seniority•
Budget responsibility•
Work day•
Income•
Age group•
Leisure time•
Pain points•
Values•
Goals•
Preference for collecting information•
Preference for shopping experience•
Trusted advisors•
Position in the sales funnel•
More specifically:
Common objections to your product or service•
Motivation to buy products such as yours•
Not all of these considerations will be relevant to
your company, or you may need to add to this list,
but it’s a good starting point that will help you to
understand what makes your persona tick, and tailor
communications that respond to those ticks.
PERSONAS
PAGE 2
©2013 SPIDER TRAINERS
Access our free, online persona profiler for B2B at http://profiler.spidertrainers.com or for
B2C at http://b2c-profiler.spidertrainers.com.