3. +Developing Personas
What is a persona?
Why are personas important?
What should a persona include?
How do you create a persona?
How many personas do you need?
Challenges in creating personas
6. + What is a persona?
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A model of a particular type of person
who will (hopefully) read and interact with
your content marketing which will increase
their chances of
taking some
desired action.
7. + What is a persona?
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A model
Based on behaviors, priorities, and goals
Of a particular type of person
Customer
Business partner
Job seeker
Industry expert
Who will (hopefully) read and interact with your
content marketing
Which will increase their chances of taking some
desired action
Making a purchase
Giving you a referral
Applying for a job
8. + Why are personas important?
They force us to gain a better understanding of specific
types of people.
They help us to create compelling, targeted messages
that those people will find valuable.
They clearly define our audiences so that everyone
involved with content marketing shares a common
understanding of the audience(s).
Twitter: @topfloortech
10. + What should a persona include?
Behaviors
Priorities
Influences
Responsibilities
Roles
Processes
Opinions
Preferences
Not:
Demographics
Trivia
Fluff
Optional:
User story
Twitter: @topfloortech
11. + How do you develop a persona?
1. Start with assumptions
Maybe even use actual people as representatives of a persona.
2. Gather input from customer touchpoints
Sales
Customer service
Human resources
3. Develop a set of interview questions
4. Interview the best examples of each persona from among
your current customers, partners, and employees.
5. Revise and refine your personas
6. Make them available to all stakeholders
7. Periodically review, update, and add as needed.
Twitter: @topfloortech
12. + How many personas should you have?
As many as you need.
As few as you can get away with!
Start with one or two.
Pick the highest priorities (customers/prospects)
Add as needs/opportunities arise.
Consider whether existing personas can be split
into multiple, more narrowly-defined personas.
Twitter: @topfloortech
13. + What kinds of personas should I develop?
Buyers
Users
Prospects
Job seekers
Industry influencers
Fans
Service technicians
Dealers/distributors
Media
Twitter: @topfloortech
14. + What kinds of personas should I develop?
Buyers
Users
Prospects
Job seekers
Industry influencers
Fans
Service technicians
Salespeople
Media
Twitter: @topfloortech
• Technical
• Economic
• New
• Experienced
• Entry-level
• Management
• Creative
• Technical
• Dealers
• Distributors
• Those that like your product
• Those that don’t like your product
• Those that know they need your product
• Those that use a competitor’s product
15. + Challenges in persona development
Making stuff up (false assumptions)
Getting out of your head and into your customers’
heads
Not specific enough
Too many personas
The wrong personas
Or the right personas in the wrong order
Irrelevant trivia
Over-thinking
Twitter: @topfloortech
17. + For further inspiration
Content Marketing Institute’s “Audience” blog:
http://contentmarketinginstitute.com/audience/
Buyer Persona Institute
http://www.buyerpersona.com/
E-book, “The Buyer Persona Manifesto”
Hubspot
Library of persona templates
Pardot
Persona development case study
Twitter: @topfloortech