Mark Kelly discusses the importance of creating impactful personas to support your construction marketing strategy.

1. MARK KELLY
Owner – Consultant
Mark Kelly Consultancy

2. Next Level
Personas
Building and using
impactful Personas

3. If you are not using
Personas you are
hampering your marketing.

4. Today
What, Why, How
Example use
A challenge

5. I didn’t always
use Personas.
And it showed

6. Personas are
representations of your
ideal customers &
stakeholders.

7. We get to know their
demographics,
challenges, goals,
sales objections &
more…

8. Why bother? They take work to create.
You’re busy.
You have a good idea what
makes prospects &
customers tick.

9. You get the insight you need
to create and talk about things
that matter to them.

10. Which leads to better:
- Value propositions
- Websites
- Content and P.O.E promotions
- Customer Journey Mapping

11. “Using Personas made
websites 2 to 5 times
more effective and
easier to use by
targeted users.”HubSpot

12. “Using Personas
accounted for 900%
increase in length of site
visit and 171% increase
in marketing-generated
revenue”
Act On

13. Building a PersonaDesk research, real data, educated input:
• Demographic, sales data
• Surveys
• Google Analytics web traffic
• Interviews with customers (lapsed and active), rejecters
• Customer service and sales team insight into customers,
rejecters, prospects, stakeholders

14. Triangulate
Distill into as few
Personas as possible

15. Bring them to life

16. Persona ‘cards’

17. This is not your Persona

18. Michael Connolly
Junior Partner, DHM Architects
BACKGROUND:
•Michael is a junior partner / Project Architect with 3 years experience in a private practice having spent a couple of
years in the public sector. He particularly likes redevelopment projects.
DEMOGRAPHICS:
•Broadly a 70% Male, 30% Female split. Salary is average of £40K p.a
IDENTIFIERS:
•Busy, well-read, an interest in adventure / outdoor activities as well as food and drink / socialising with friends.
TYPICAL SEARCH TERMS USED FOR GOOGLE
Contract furniture, office furniture, task seating, furniture design (see wider list)
GOALS:
Michael wants to build long term relationships with his clients, to over-deliver on their expectations (by specifying
great furniture and building a trusted relationship with both dealers and end designers/manufacturers) .. and to have
fun along the way.
NEEDS:
Being time poor, he needs clear product information quickly. Being junior he needs to prove himself with clients and
the business partners: so needs to feel the products are quality AND the sales / account people he deals with know
their products and the wider space development project world inside out.
CHALLENGES:
Always juggling projects, Michael is short on time. But the stakes are high and he needs to feel he ‘gets’ a furniture
design business quickly and understands not just the products they make but the ‘brand ethos’ and what it will be like
to engage them.
BUYING JOURNEY:
Michael reads Architects’ Journal online, Mix Interiors. Will follow interesting furniture and also interior fittings etc.
suppliers on Twitter and LinkedIn. We need to make first move though.
THEIR COMMON SALES OBJECTIONS: (that we can counter in our content)
“You may not have the project management ability I need to rely on”.
“I’m not sure about the quality and provenance of your products”
“I want to know you work with great designers”
What does Michael want from our website?
Clear signposting to our range of products. Access to tech specs etc.
Evidence of other projects we have worked on (case studies). A real sense of who
we are and our engagement in the industry, understanding of workspace trends
e.g. wellbeing, multiuse (agile) spaces etc.
What do we want Michael to do?
1: Contact us: let’s make all Calls to Action on the site very clear.
2. Sign up for our newsletter
3. Download products, specs and find case studies easily
HOW WE HELP: (what value to we add?)
We demonstrate knowledge of the furniture design process. Knowledge of the
whole project lifecycle: from shortlisting potential furniture through to delivery and
installation. We make more of the sales team in our content and benefits of having
a consistent professional point of contact for him, By highlighting how easy it is to
specify our products and colour way / fabric options etc. we show Michael we make
his life easier.
OUR ELEVATOR PITCH:
We design and manufacture furniture that supports the new ways of working.
“I’m exacting about great
design and build quality - and
I want the same passion
from the furniture partner I
work with”

19. Persona Journey MappingUser Journey MappingCustomer Journey Mapping

20. Journey Maps identify:
- new content or functionality opportunities
- where to improve what you have already
- new service or product opportunities

21. A JM visually documents the customer’s experience of our
touchpoints, through their perspective
We use our Personas to ‘be them’ and walk in their shoes
Photo by rawpixel.com on Unsplas

22. One Journey Map per Persona
Good to use a cross-functional team to work on map’s
creation in a workshop

23. They can look ‘all over the place’
The exercise is more important than having neat diagrams
at the end

24. From Post-its to platforms

25. Social media channels
1. Persona to hand ..
Building up a map
Goal Goal Goal Goal Goal
3. Define the goals in each stage above
4. Brainstorm all possible touch points (‘moments
of truth’)
5. Add in their emotions at each point (how can we
reassure / excite?)
6. Where we need to improve CONTENT &
FUNCTIONALITY: document AND PRIORITISE our
resources and timeframes to achieve
What DON’T we do now? What DO we do - but
BADLY? What’s GOOD & should continue?
2. Define the customer’s behavioural stages
Advocate

26. Personas: 5 mistakes to avoid
• Don’t fly solo – have a Personas team for best
insight
• Don’t build too many – typically 4 to 6
• Use real names, real photos – believe in them
• Don’t leave them on your PC - pin them up,
show them your work
• Revisit them at least annually

27. A challenge
30 days from now:
Customer Persona cards ready and
shared in your business.
Benchmark all your metrics, before and after.
Personas WILL improve your marketing.

28. Thank You
Persona platforms:
http://touchpointdashboard.com/
https://uxpressia.com/
https://www.smaply.com/
Persona aides:
http://www.fakenamegenerator.com/gen-male-en-uk.php
https://www.uxpressia.com/personas-online-tool