In my last video we talked about the P that was missing in the 4 Ps and that is the Persona. So what are some avenues you can take to understand your buyer persona? They can be but aren’t limited to:
- Buyer persona interviews
- Sales and account manager interviews
- Surveys
- Social media listening
- Web analytics
Of course buyer persona interviews take the most time because you have to reach out and schedule a 1×1 meeting but I believe them to be the most important followed by sitting down with your frontline teams – sales and account managers. I want to be clear that these are NOT product/user interviews. The goal is not to understand “how” they are using your product or service, the goal is to have a deeper understanding on who this person is, what their problems/needs are and why they are a candidate for your product.
You might be asking which customers you want to talk to and how many you should talk to. I would start with your longest tenured and most profitable customer. I typically work with clients that already have a proven product in the market and want to build their lead engine. If you are a startup or are launching a new product or service, then you would select some prospective customers. I conduct between 5-10 interviews but this can vary by size of company, complexity of product, etc.
There are plenty of buyer persona templates out on the internet that you can work off of and they should include key questions around topics like:
- Demographics such as industry, job title, job responsibilities
- Tools used to get their job done
- Challenges they might face in their day-to-day
- Problems they are trying to solve and how their success is measured
- Where they go to learn whether it be certain publications they read, groups they are part of, conferences they go to – all are very important to capture because these are potential channels you can use in your marketing campaign
As marketers, our job is to have a voice in the market, to build brand awareness and generate demand for the business but I think it’s so important to start with listening first. The insights you get from those personable interactions will help your campaigns resonate better with your target audience.
I’d like to end with a favorite quote of mine by Mark Twain.
“If we were meant to talk more than listen, we would have two mouths and one ear.”
Mark Twain