The Science Of Building Buyer Personas [Infographic]

December 12, 2014

I am sure most of you will agree that creating a buyer persona is crucial to any successful B2B lead generation and marketing campaign. However, in case you need more persuasive proof of the power of targeting, read this infographic created by Single Grain.

Traditional Demographic Marketing

Targetting through demographics is now too large and too diverse to be effective.
As an example, if only 1 out of 10 people in your target audience needs your solution, then 9 of them are not prospects and you have wasted 90% of your time and resources.

Targeting Very Specific Groups

Using marketing personas made websites 2-5 times more effective.
Personalized emails improve click-through rates by 14%.
Personalized emails also improve conversion rates by 10%.
Segmenting and creating a “catered” email marketing experience will drive 18 times more revenue than broadcast emails.
Behaviorally-targeted ads are twice as effective as non-targeted ads.

Case Study: SkyTap

Targeted personas lifted sales leads 124%.
97% increase in online leads.
55% increase in organic search traffic.
210% increase in North American site traffic.

Initial Research

Affinity Mapping

A customer-facing team will compile assumptions about user needs and attributes.

Focus Groups

Focus groups should be between 6-10 participants lasting no longer than 90 minutes.
Ensure the group is mediated by a skilled moderator.

Ethnographic Research

Research forums and do keyword research to determine your target consumer/prospect.
Follow social activity to observe target consumers.

Multiple-Choice Surveys

This is where you collect the demograhic information about your target audience.
Did you know if you include paper and phone response options, this can result in an 11% higher response rate than web-based surveys.

Internal Data

Remember to use your internal background data as well as you build your persona.
This can include sales, calls and outcomes, returns and user profiles.

Analytics

As always, measure, measure, measure.
Metrics you can use to measure include page traffic, bounce rate, referring site, overall sales revenue, conversion rate, etc.

Steps To Construct The Buyer Persona

1. Name the persona which helps paint a picture of a real individual with an unmet need.

2. Clearly define the goal. Your call-to-action should be based on the unmet need of your target audience.

3. Gather the research you completed above.

4. Analyze and segment your data. Identify behavioral and demographic trends.

5. Construct the profile of your buyer persona. This is your hypothetical customer description which should include behavior, lifestyle, demographic, and product/service use or gaps.

Congratulations! You now have your Buyer Persona!