You are a savvy marketer who knows the value of understanding your target market. You’ve done extensive persona work and have a firm grasp on what each of your prospect types is looking for in products and services like yours... or, at least, you had a firm grasp.
You see, the truism that “the only thing that is constant is change” (thank you, Heraclitus) applies to your personas as well. And why shouldn’t it? Your offerings are evolving, your competitors’ offerings are evolving, and your market, likewise, is constantly evolving. It stands to reason that a persona’s wants and needs are different today (potentially much different) than they were just a year ago when you did your last research. Or, dare I say, it is possible that your assumptions about the personas were off just a tad bit?
Fresh Personas and Revenue Goals
The importance of updating buyer personas can't be understated. Can having well-maintained persona profiles help you meet your marketing and sales objectives? Absolutely! One recent study by Cintell found that B2B companies that exceed their lead generation and sales goals are almost 7.5 times more likely to have refreshed their persona information in the last six months.
In the same survey, more than 47% of companies that exceeded their revenue goals indicated that they were “consistently effective” in maintaining their personas. Just 13% of organizations that missed their sales goals reported the same. That’s a pretty clear correlation between persona-focused effort and payoff that shows how buyer personas can transform your business.
Time to Take a Second Look at Your Personas?
If you’re thinking that now might be an excellent time to revisit your personas, you might also be wondering if there’s any additional information you should be gathering this time around. The Cintell survey asked participants about 11 different types of data and found six that were collected by 65% or more of respondents who had exceeded their lead generation and sales goals:
- Drivers and motivators (93.8%)
- Fears and challenges (87.5%)
- Role in buying process (87.5%)
- Buying preferences (81.3%)
- Organizational goals/priorities (75%)
- Demographic information (68.8%)
Again, this is the data that was gathered by companies that exceeded their goals. If you don’t have it for your personas, perhaps you should... unless you don't care about reaching or exceeding your sales goals.
Persona Information Sources
If you decide to refresh your personas, there are a number of ways you can go about getting updated information, including:
- Conduct interviews with both customers and prospects
- Interview your executive team
- Review competitors’ websites
- Interview your customer support/success team
- Run and analyze reports from your CRM system
- Pull data from your marketing automation system
- Review your (documented, of course) personas, and validate your assumptions
And that’s just the short list.
Cultivating a Customer-Centric Mindset
As we’ve blogged about many times, here in the era of inbound marketing, success isn’t about impressing prospects with how superior your offerings are—it’s about understanding their needs and demonstrating how well your offerings meet them. In other words, it’s about them, not you. And without in-depth knowledge of what THEY are looking for today, you simply can’t engage with them effectively. Keeping your buyer personas in mind throughout your marketing efforts will be the key.
If you want an objective opinion about the current state of your personas, give us a call. As a leading Colorado Springs inbound marketing agency, we’ve helped our clients achieve tremendous success with highly accurate personas as the cornerstone of their marketing strategy. Let us see if we can do the same for your business. Contact us for a free, no strings attached consultation.
