Find out what marketing personas are, how to use them, and why they can make marketing your business easier and more successful.

1. Heart Internet’s Tips in Ten
Marketing Personas
You’re just ten slides away from learning how
(and why) to develop marketing personas.

2. What are marketing personas?
Marketing personas (aka buyer
personas) are fictional
representations of your ideal
customers.
In theory they are based on real
data about customer demographics,
online behavior, their buying goals,
personal histories, motivations, and
concerns.
In practice, for small businesses they also include personal experience and anecdotal evidence.

3. How do marketing personas help?
Persona
Where to
advertise
The
product
to create
Pricing
Design
Tone of
voice
Level of
support
Creating a persona you can visualise
makes developing a marketing
strategy much easier.

4. Creating a persona
Segment
the market
Target
audience
Create
persona

5. Creating a persona – segment the market
Bloggers < HomeHobbyists
Mid-sized
ecommerce < Business
Large
Ecommerce
Large
design
agency
(11+
staff)
< Creatives
Small
design
agency (1-
10 staff)
WYSIWYG
users
First time
website
builders
Brochure
website
Small
Ecommerce
SOHO
web
designers
Part-
time
freelance

6. Creating a persona - target
Home based
Hobbyist
Active bloggers Small businesses
SOHO designers IT services Start-ups
Power-users (e.g.
developers)
SOHO designers Small design
agencies

7. Sources of data to build persona
• Customer surveys (quantitative)
• Customer interviews (qualitative)
• Google consumer surveys
• Keywords used to find your website e.g. [{City} + {Product}]
• Sales and support team knowledge (They are at the coal face)
• Personal experience
• Google Analytics (device, time of day, interest categories etc.)
• Buyer persona research specialist companies
Paint a picture of the market and who your ideal customer is, what they value, and
how your solution fits into their daily lives.

8. Creating a persona
<<Give the persona a name>>
BACKGROUND:
• What is the persona’s job?
• Key information about the persona’s company
• Relevant background info, like education or hobbies
DEMOGRAPHICS:
• Gender bias
• Age Range
• Income/ budget
• Geographic location (where applicable)
IDENTIFIERS:
• What specific mannerisms sets them apart?
Including a real photo from Creative Commons or
iStockphoto helps everyone envision the same
person.

9. Creating a persona
GOALS:
• What is the persona’s primary goal?
• What is the persona’s secondary goal?
CHALLENGES:
• Primary challenge to persona’s success
• Secondary challenge to persona’s success
HOW WE HELP:
• How you solve your persona’s challenges
• How you help your persona achieve goals
REAL QUOTES:
• Include a few real quotes – from survey or interview–
that represent your persona well. This will make it
easier to relate to and understand your persona.
COMMON OBJECTIONS:
• Identify the most common objections your persona
will raise during the sales process. Identifying
common objections help to understand potential
road-blocks and allows you to tailor marketing
messages that address these.
MARKETING MESSAGING:
• How should you describe your solution to your
persona?
ELEVATOR PITCH:
• Make describing your solution simple and consistent
across everyone in your company.

10. SOHO designer Dan
BACKGROUND:
• Experienced freelance web designer
• Works alone
• Small office, home office (SOHO)
• Targets small businesses with small budget expectations
DEMOGRAPHICS:
• Skews male
• Aged early 20s to mid 30s
IDENTIFIERS:
• Knowledgeable about the web
• Quality and support are most important considerations
• Online primarily during office hours
• Small budget

11. Identify Dan’s goals, challenges, and what you can provide to help
him in a short series of bullet points.
Then create a marketing message and elevator pitch to showcase
your offerings in line with his needs and expectations.
Expand this further with your bigger marketing efforts. Marketing
personas allow you to create campaigns that attract, educate and
resonate with those potential buyers.
SOHO designer Dan