Knoxville HUG: Creating Data-Driven Buyer Personas That Work

#KnoxHUG
Knoxville HubSpot User Group (HUG) Meetup
Creating Data-Driven Buyer Personas That Work
@KnoxvilleHU
G
#KnoxHUG
Holly Yalove
Knoxville HubSpot User Group Leader
Principal & Chief Strategist, VIEO Design

knoxville.hubspotusergroups.com #KnoxHUG

HUG News
INBOUND 2016 (Boston, MA): November 8th - 11th
INBOUND 2016 HUG Contest: Register for INBOUND
2016 with our code to get $50 off + prizes!
The more HUG members we have registered for INBOUND, the better
the chance our group has to win some awesome prizes!

HUG Contest
Our Code: HUGKnoxville • Expires 10/17/16
If 10 members use our HUG’s code: We all win a co
influencer’s book *HubSpot will have a variety of options fro
& past INBOUND speakers while supplies last
If 20 members use our HUG’s code:
We win exclusive HUG branded swag that will make our
INBOUND experience extra-delightful
The group with the most codes used: Our entire gro
reserved up-front
seating during all keynotes & INBOUND Rocks!

HUG News
Upcoming Meetups: 8/23/16 & 10/25/16
We’ll Have HubSpot Guest Speakers!
Sarah Posnak
HubSpot Principal Partner Strategist
Evan Dean
HubSpot Senior Channel Consultant

What Is a Buyer Persona?

What Is a Buyer Persona?
Buyer personas are fictional but data-driven
profiles of your ideal or actual customers.

Thoughtful, detailed buyer personas…
• Reflect the goals and motivations of your ideal customers
• Help you understand your potential customers better
• Enable you to deliver content, goods, and services your
customers will love
Why Buyer Personas Matter

Specific, accurate buyer personas will help you…
• Develop and course-correct your marketing strategy
• Increase your return on investment (ROI)
• Delight your customers throughout your relationship
Why Buyer Personas Matter

So…How do you do all that?
Let’s take it step-by-step…
7-Step Guide for Crafting
Effective Buyer Personas

The Right Questions Will:
• Get to the heart of motivations
and challenges
• Help you better understand
buying decisions
Find Out Which Questions
You Need to Ask

The Wrong Questions Will:
• Give you a false sense of progress
• Lead to important marketing decisions
based on inaccurate data

Everything you ask should:
• Be customized based on
your industry
• Cater to the type of prospect you’re
targeting – B2B? B2C?
• Consider the kind of conversions you’re
seeking
• And many other factors…

Focus Initial Questions on
ONE Buyer Persona
Even if you have several, it’s best to start
with the most important persona rather
than trying to develop all at once.

When Choosing Questions:
•Don’t stop at “what”
“What social network do you use most?”
•Take the time to get to “why”
“Why is Facebook more convenient for you
than Twitter?”

• Employer, job title, and daily functions
• Personal and professional goals
• Challenges and pain points
• Preferred sources of information
• Where they spend their time online
• Personal background
• Buying habits
• Hobbies and free time activities
Start with these general categories:

Homework:
Write 10-15 questions that
get at your ideal customer’s
most important needs, wants,
challenges,
and motivations.

Collect Data that
Addresses Your Questions
• Gather as much information as possible
• Remember that not all data is equal
• Focus on data that helps identify your
customers’ needs
• Use a wide variety of resources

Potential Resources
• Team insights (e.g. sales, customer service,
and support)
• Customer and prospect interviews or surveys
• Customer social media activity/engagement
• Demographic data from your contact lists
(e.g. TowerData)
• Search engine and social media analytics
• Market research and public records
• A closed-loop marketing software like HubSpot
Collect Data that

Interviews & Survey Tips
• Strike a balance between long-time customers and
more recent ones—each group provides
different insights
• If possible, talk to those who chose your competitors
and find out why
• Gather enough data to identify trends, but not so much
that you’ll never finish analyzing it
Collect Data that

Identify 10 promising sources of
information about your ideal buyer,
and take steps to collect any data
that isn’t already at hand.
Homework:

Find the Patterns in Your Data
• Gather your data into one place:
• Google Docs
• Evernote
• Excel
• Or whatever tool is easiest for you
• When you see patterns:
• Identify trends
• Look for the relationships these trends have
to each other

If you see more than one clear group
of people emerge, start with the
persona that offers the best ROI
for your business.

Trends to Look for Include:
• What content is performing the best?
• Which value propositions are featured in your top-
performing content?
• Which platforms are earning the most engagement?
• What content formats do your leads respond to best?
• What content, channels, and CTAs are getting the best
conversion rates?
Find the Patterns in Your
Data

Trends to look for include:
• What traffic or engagement not only results in the
most leads, but the most closed customers?
• How do customers behave on my website and
engage with my brand after they’ve made
the purchase?
• How are potential customers using their discretionary
income?
• What are the most common barriers to purchase?

Don’t Go Too Broad.
Casting a Wide Net = Bad Leads
• Target the exact people you want to
reach.
• The attempt to reach everyone ends
up only attracting a few because it’s
too generic.
Once you’ve sifted through the data, it’s time
to fill out a buyer persona worksheet!

Homework:
Complete our buyer persona
worksheet and/or answer your own list
of questions using the trends in the data
you’ve gathered.

SWAG TIME!
@KnoxvilleHU
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K
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Your worksheets provide structure,
but a list is not enough. Add the motivations
behind behaviors.
Start Writing Your Primary Buyer Persona
Write a narrative document that
describes your persona’s life and his or
her needs and goals for:
• Work life
• Free time
• Family life
• And beyond...

Discerning their motives helps you anticipate what they want,
and what they’ll want next.
• Why do they prefer Facebook to Twitter?
• Why do they engage more during the afternoon, or on Saturday mornings?
Your persona needs to be specific enough to be realistic, but still represent
a group of people.

Homework
Use the answers in your worksheet to imagine
the life of the person they describe and write a 1-
2 page description of their work life, home life,
and day-to-day challenges and goals.

Make Them Easy to Use on a Daily Basis
Finalize your persona document in a format
that’s easy for your team to use and
return regularly.
HubSpot’s suggested chapters include:
1. Job and demographic info
2. Describe a day in the persona’s life
3. What are the persona’s challenges and
pain points?
4. Where does the persona go
for information?
5. Common objections to products
and services

• Give your persona a catchy name that’s easy
to remember and use for reference (e.g.
Marketing Mike or CEO Sarah)
• Enrich your final persona with real customer
quotes and a fitting stock photo
• Write an ideal “elevator pitch” for this and
future personas
• Start planning a campaign that targets
your persona
Make Them Easy to
Use on a Daily Basis

Homework:
• Combine your 1-2 page description and
your original Q&A into the 5-chapter format
1. Job and demographic info.
2. Describe a day in the persona’s life
3. What are the persona’s challenges and
pain points?
4. Where does the persona go for information?
5. Common objections to products and services
• Make sure it has a catchy name
• Add customer quotes
• Add a photograph
• Write an elevator pitch
• Get it out to everyone on your team!

Revamp Your Marketing with
Your Persona
• Create content directed to your ideal persona
• Include your:
• Website pages
• Blog posts
• Premium content offers
• Social media posts
• Email marketing
• Any other applicable marketing materials

If you’re thinking “Uhh…I haven’t
been marketing to my persona”:
• Don’t worry; it’s surprisingly common.
• Focus on revamping your essential sales tools, and then
producing new content that does fit your persona.
• Take it step-by-step
• Start with:
• High-traffic pages and posts
• Homepage copy
• Key sales materials

• Buyer personas work best in combination
with lifecycle stages in a content
mapping process.
• Each persona will act differently and need
different things at each stage of the buying
process.

Homework:
• With your new persona in hand, review the key
elements of your website and marketing materials.
• Make note of anything that doesn’t directly address your
persona, and take steps to correct it.

Remember, Personas
Are Never Done
• Just like people, buyer personas are
always evolving
• Go back to the data regularly
• Keep building personas based on the
needs of your target customers

Homework
Set a reminder for yourself 3-
5 months from now to
review your buyer personas
in light of the results you see
during that time.

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