THE IMPORTANCEOF PROFILING PERSONAS

IN ORDER TO DEVELOP RELEVANT CONTENT IN SOCIAL POSTINGS,

MARKETING MESSAGES, AND WEB PAGES, YOU MUST KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE.

Have heard of buyer personas, but don’t know why or

how they are used.

Need ideas for what to track in your persona

spreadsheet.

Need an example of a persona-building tool.

SPIDER TRAINERS CAN HELPIf any of these describe you, Spider Trainers can

help. We are marketing-automation architects and

we will analyze your need and create a campaign for

you that will ensure your return on your email-

automation software investment — even when

you’re feeling the pinch of full workloads and too-

few resources.

Spider Trainers is a network of more than 80 experts in

email development, web development, search-engine

optimization, analytics, graphic design, ad creation,

multimedia creation, social-media postings, writing,

and editing. We bring all of these disparate talents to

bear on your project, to ensure that every functional

requirement is met with the expertise it requires.

Our publications are designed to help you identify

need, understand the topic, and enable you to

engage in development discussion. While we may be

guilty of giving too much information, we know that

the empowered and informed client is the successful

client. We hope this guide does that for you.

We look forward to learning more about your needs.

Please contact us at 651 702 3793 or .

YOU SHOULD READ THIS GUIDE IF YOU:

©2013 SPIDER TRAINERS

• Buyer persona

• Marketing persona

• Inbound marketing

• Outbound marketing

• User experience

• Marketing plan

• Marketing campaign

• Personal profile

KEYPHRASES

PAGE 1

©2013 SPIDER TRAINERS

When you're trying to buy the ideal gift for someone,

you visualize them and think of their needs while you

are shopping or planning to shop. You run through a

mental list of needs, wants, hates, loves, interests,

and perhaps ambivalence. Building personas is the

same exercise, just on a commercial level.

Defining personas, or profiling and documenting the

needs, wants, desires, and other attributes of each

type of person who buys from (or interacts with) your

company is a process that will help you to:

Write relevant copy that is both engaging and•

useful to each member of your audience.

Segment your lists so that messages to the list•

are more targeted.

Develop triggered marketing campaigns that•

will nurture leads and convert them to

customers.

Create web pages that answer actual questions•

and address tangible pain points.

INTRODUCTION

Buyer personas are fictional representations of yourideal customers. They are based on real data aboutcustomer demographics and online behavior, alongwith educated speculation about their personalhistories, motivations, and concerns.

— HubSpot

Although often referred to as buyer personas,

personas may represent other groups as well, such

as the press, analysts, and investors. What’s more,

defining personas is not a marketing function, nor

are the personas used strictly for marketing. Profiling

your customers or visitors is a company function and

input from the sales department, customer support

team, and other customer-facing groups will

heighten understanding that will benefit the entire

organization.

You can be as general or specific as you choose when

drawing personas, but keep in mind that the more

specificity you provide, the more targeted your

messaging (or web-page content) can be. Definitions

can be tracked in a simple spreadsheet or database

application.

As valuable as this exercise is, it’s one thing to be

empathetic to your customers and draw them with

broad strokes as you see them, but this effort can be

advanced if you think of or involve your actual

customers. Contemplate the profiles your top five

customers represent and respond to the questions as

they would, or if feasible, ask if they would be willing

to complete a profile for you.

Persona building is not a particularly difficult task and

you don’t have to get it right the first time. Take your

best shot at it and refine as you go. Through testing,

tracking, and tweaking of your content, you will be

able to find and fill the gaps. If you need some help,

click here to access our B2B persona profiler or here to

access our B2C persona profiler.

Here are some ideas for what you might wish to

define in your personas. In most cases, you will at

least list their demographics, but beyond that

consider her or his:

Needs•

Interests•

Judging functions (thinking or feeling)•

Firmographics•

Job title•

Job description•

Level of seniority•

Budget responsibility•

Work day•

Income•

Age group•

Leisure time•

Pain points•

Values•

Goals•

Preference for collecting information•

Preference for shopping experience•

Trusted advisors•

Position in the sales funnel•

More specifically:

Common objections to your product or service•

Motivation to buy products such as yours•

Not all of these considerations will be relevant to

your company, or you may need to add to this list,

but it’s a good starting point that will help you to

understand what makes your persona tick, and tailor

communications that respond to those ticks.

PERSONAS

PAGE 2

©2013 SPIDER TRAINERS

Access our free, online persona profiler for B2B at http://profiler.spidertrainers.com or for B2C at http://b2c-profiler.spidertrainers.com.