Who are your personas?
A persona is in the first place a representation, a person, who uses/consumes your product or service.
For a product marketeer it is key to know the users and the situatuions in which the product is used. So he/she can focus on the real needs and problems of the users, validate with them before going into production of new features.
For a demand generation or lead marketeer, it is important to understand that there are more people involved than just the user/consumer. There are other roles like the buyer, the supporter, the infleuncer and the decision maker. All these roles have an impact on the buying or usage of the product.
So if you are working on acquisition, make sure you map out all the roles and people involved during the buying journey. Did you know that within a B2B context, on an avergae scale, there are 7 personas involved in the buying journey?
You want to find out who are the personas of your product?
Here are 5 simple steps:
- List the situations/context in which your product is being used
- List per situation the people involved
- List the roles during the buying and usage journey
- Attribute the roles to the people
- Select you key persona depending on the roles
Tip! Use a stakeholder map for step 4.
Customer stakeholder map
Persona profile research
Once you have selected your key personas, it is time to get to know them. We want to understand them so we can take actions upon: create valuable content to attract them, to build your lead generation campigns, to develop new services or to feed your product roadmap.
The quality of your persona work depends on your research approach. I recommend the following qualitative research methods:
– Desk research
– Co-creative workshop
– Individual deep dive sessions
– Interviews
The power lays in the co-creative workshops, doing it together with the people who are involved in taking the actions upon the persona work. So if you are doing persona work for lead generation, involve sales, content, CRM, product marketeer, campaign manager. It is important that you also keep all the data you collect, so you cann re-use this data. I recommend to use a digital reserach wall.
The power of co-creation and visualisation
Persona template
People ask me for a persona template. I always return the question with the question: “what is your action?”. You first need to figure out what you want to get out of it? Who is all involved in that action? And what is the best way to feed them so they take proper action?
It is all about empathizing with your personas. You can not just empathize just by reading some insights on a slide. That’s why I recommend to do co-creative workshops, individual deep dives and telling each other persona stories. Make it alive. We do even ideation sessions because this an active form of learning and putting yourself in the shoes of the other. We use these ideas later on in the process.
The more you make your persona real and alive. The better. If you are a lead marketeer who is responsible to build engagement campaigns, it is better to visualize a real person. The same for the copy writer and the designer. So it is not just the template that will do the trick. The best way to learn is through visualization and acting.
We use a persona map or a persona poster. These 2 formats are easy to share, adapt and use. We have been using more and more the persona map which is based on the empathy map.
Example of persona map. (source: Boagworld)
Example of persona poster. (source: Engagement Factory)
Persona maps
I am a great fan of visualization cause it is the best and fastes way to learn. Visualization activates the creative powers of the subconscious mind, motivating it to work harder at creating solutions.
We use 2 variants of the persona map: the customer profile map of strategyzer and the empathy map.
The customer profile map
The customer profile map (source: Strategyzer)
This persona map is used to find your customer value proposition. A customer value proposition tells the prospects why they should do business with you rather than your competitors. It is a company’s promise to deliver specific value or benefits, and an outline of how it proposes to fulfil that promise. Or basically, why should the prospect care? What problems do you solve?
There are 3 things you need to know about your persona:
- Jobs-to-do: What is he doing?
- Pains: What are obstacles?
- Gains: What is a good result?
The value propositin canvas (source: Strategyzer)
The empathy map
The empathy map canvas (source: Dave Gray, Xplaner)
An empathy map is a simple, easy-to-digest visual that captures knowledge about a person’s behaviors and attitudes. The exercise of creating the map helps participants consider things from the user’s perspective along with his or her goals and challenges. Empathy maps are most useful at the beginning of the design process after user research but before requirements and concepting. It can help guide the construction of personas or serve as a bridge between personas and concept deliverables.
2 worlds - 2 persona maps
There are 2 worlds: the product world and the customer world. When you want to profile your persona and you really want to dive into his or her world, start with the customer world.
The customer world – the customer persona map
Start with the situation your user persona is in. What is it what he tries to achieve? What is his goal? Find out the real customer context. Your product or service fits into that context. It is a mean, not a solution.
“The customer context defines the value.”
Let me give you an example. I’m actually working on a customer journey project for a company that develops structural engineering software. Their purpose is to build a lead marketing machine, building relationships with key personas involved in the buying process.
So instead of diving into the product world of structural engineering software, we look at the bigger picture. What are situations where structural engineering is needed? What type of projects? What problems do a structural engineer solve? With whom does he or she work?
We hardly speak about the product, but more about the activity! We synthesize all the findings into the following customer persona map.
It is important to start with the customer context. When you strat connecting, reaching out to your personas, you show them their world. So they recognize their situation, they feel you understand. They start trusting you and invest their energy into a relationship with you. It is about creating the helpful experience that is the foundation of your customer relationships.
The product world – the product persona map
You want to know what the expectactions are from your persona towards your product, service and you as being a partner. You want to know what he needs, how he comes to a decision, what is a barrier to make a decision. This is information which will help you within the buying and usage journey.
About the author
“Hey, My name is Stefaan. I am passionate about making helpful connections with people through digitale engagement. Over the past 18 years I have developed 4 expertises to make a success of digital engagement.”
Phone: +32 484 48 05 24
E-mail: stefaan@growthup.eu
