Personas are a hot topic. Marketers either love them or doubt their value. With customers and marketers alike becoming more demanding for content that's relevant to them, personas are the fuel that powers a marketer's ability to make meaningful connections.

1. Personas & Content Marketing
Ardath Albee
CEO & B2B Marketing Strategist
@ardath421

2. • This webinar is being recorded! Slides and recordings will
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• Questions? Type them into the chat box and we will get
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@ardath421
Housekeeping

3. Thank you to our partners!!!!

4. Personas & Content Marketing
Ardath Albee
CEO & B2B Marketing Strategist
@ardath421

5. Content output increased by 78%
Content engagement decreased by 60%
TrackMaven – Content Paradox 2015

6. 43%of
professionally marketed
blog posts receive fewer
than 10 views
TrackMaven – Content Paradox 2015

7. Buyers Are NOT Impressed
Forrester

8. B2B Buyer’s Primary Reason for
Seeking Content
Economist – Executive Perceptions of Content 2014
16%
75%
8%

9. 85%of marketers say
that understanding buyers
will be their #1
responsibility in two years.
ITSMA

10. A persona is a composite sketch of a target market
based on validated commonalities that actively informs
content strategy to drive productive buyer engagement.

11. 9 Components
for Personas

12. Characteristics:
Specific
Situational
NO:
Grow Revenues
YES:
Eliminate inefficiency to
speed time to market

13. Characteristics:
Not obvious to buyers
Workarounds in place
NO:
Inefficiency
YES:
Lack of automated workflows
adds months to product launches

14. Characteristics:
Stall progress
Hinder decisions
Create uncertainty
NO:
Price
YES:
What do I need to know to convince Tom?
What if our people won’t adopt the new
workflows?

15. Characteristics:
What buyers need to
know to gain the
confidence to change
NO:
What features does your product have?
YES:
Given my situation, why should I care?
How do I eliminate X to achieve Y?
What can I do now that I couldn’t do before?

16. Characteristics:
Professional demeanor
Career background
NO:
Married with 2 kids + dog
YES:
20 years in career
Confident leader
Mentors her team

17. Characteristics:
Reflect objectives
Describe problems / goals
Longer tail early
Shorter late stage
NO:
Product related words
YES:
Reduce time to market
Product launch best practices

18. Characteristics:
Continuous flow
Crosses channels
Connects the story
NO:
One-off, short-term campaigns
YES:
Continuum experience across the
entirety of the buying process

19. Characteristics:
Written from their perspective
Could be read out loud as a
dialogue
Puts you in their “shoes”
NO:
Sally is a hard worker who is determined to
make product launches more efficient.
YES:
I’m struggling to get products to market
faster because our processes are too
convoluted but my boss is worried that
changing them will create more chaos.

20. Characteristics:
Where your buyers are
What they will engage
with in each place
NO:
Pinterest is cool! We have to be
there!
YES:
LinkedIn – these groups / topics
Twitter for blogs & infographics

21. Interviews are conversations,
not interrogations

22. • Tell me about your job… (A Day in the Life)
• What happened that made you look for a solution? (Problem)
• What was the outcome you were trying to achieve? (Objective)
• What did you need to learn about? (Questions)
• Why couldn’t you solve this internally? (A Day in the Life)
• Who else was involved? (Persona identification)
• Where did you find the most useful information? (Engagement, channels)
• What kind of pushback did you get? (Obstacles, Questions)
• Do you remember the turning point when everyone got on board?
What happened? (Engagement scenarios, Sales enablement)
Customer Interviews

23. • Who do you interact with at a prospect company?
• Who influences them? Or who do they need to influence?
• What questions do they ask?
• How do they describe the problems they’re solving?
• Why haven’t they solved it already?
• What do they need to build the business case?
• What types of pushback do you get?
Sales Interviews

24. • LinkedIn – review profiles for people like your personas
• Responsibilities
• Orientation – look at their recommendations, length in career
• Groups
• Analyst & Research reports on the industry
• Leading industry, thought leader blogs
• Competitor websites, blogs, social media profiles, case
studies
• Adwords Keyword Tool
External Research

25. • Actively inform content strategy
• Increase relevance by showcasing value
• Make buyers the hero of the story
• Help drive buyer outreach
• A Flexible Framework for building relationships
• Alignment with sales teams
What to Expect from Buyer Personas

26. Thank You!
Ardath Albee
CEO & B2B Marketing Strategist
Marketing Interactions, Inc.
@ardath421
ardath@marketinginteractions.com

27. Questions?