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BEST PRACTICES & STRATEGIES
How to build comprehensive personas and
provide a firm go-to-market foundation for
your marketing campaigns
The cloud-based digital marketing provider, Silverpop, fully out of your 50 to 75 contacts, you’ll have eight
released “10 Tips for Developing Buyer Persona”, which to 12 people who agree to the interview process.
can be incredibly useful to understand your customers
better. The company is part of the IBM Marketing Cloud 3. Supplement your list with analytics. As you’re
and uses customer data and individual behaviors, col- pulling together your list, you might find you already
lected from a variety of sources, to inform and drive per- have some demographic and behavioral information
sonalized interactions in real time. that provides valuable customer insights. Feel free
to supplement your customer records with these
Learn how to build comprehensive personas and provide insights, but keep in mind that information such as
a firm go-to-market foundation for your marketing cam- “active on Twitter but not Facebook” or “Always at-
paigns, considering Silverpop’s following tips: tends XYZ conference” is usually too high-level to
help you create differentiated messaging. So, don’t
1. Communicate your mission. As the marketing exec- forgo the interview process because you already
utive, sponsoring your buyer persona project, let your have a lot of information about your customers and
sales management know what the project is and that “think” you know what you need.
you’ll be contacting recent wins, as well as clients that
deferred their buying decision or purchased from 4. Conduct thorough interviews. To help make sure
competitors, to ask them if they would be willing to you get the most out of your interviews, you’ll want
participate in an interview. Explain that they are going to approach these conversations like a professional
to get some key upgrades to their sales tool kit at the investigative journalist. For starters, this means re-
conclusion of the project. membering to turn on the tape recorder and remind-
ing the interviewee that you’re doing so. If you don’t
2. Develop a high-quality list of recent buyers to in- have that fearless “get to the bottom of it” mentality,
terview. Look at sales history in your CRM or order then you’ll need to get someone else to do the inter-
management system and run a report of recent pur- views. Whoever is doing the interviews should ask
chasers. If you also track deferred purchases and lost probing questions and listen carefully to the an-
deals, then include them in the report. Develop a list swers, digging deeper where appropriate as custom-
of about 50 to 75 potential interviewees. Leverage ers are sharing their insights on how their evaluation
your inside sales team, call center or support desk to and buying process went. The goal should be to find
recruit people for interviews. Send follow-up emails to out: (1) Why interviewees decided to look for a new
those that you leave voice mails for explaining what product or solution; (2) What brands they initially
the project is about, letting them know that the inter- considered (and why); (3) How they evaluated those
view will be recorded, and asking for their help. Hope- brands, what was important to them and what con-
36 Asian eMarketing - November 2015 eCommerce & Customer Lifetime
How to build comprehensive personas and
provide a firm go-to-market foundation for
your marketing campaigns
The cloud-based digital marketing provider, Silverpop, fully out of your 50 to 75 contacts, you’ll have eight
released “10 Tips for Developing Buyer Persona”, which to 12 people who agree to the interview process.
can be incredibly useful to understand your customers
better. The company is part of the IBM Marketing Cloud 3. Supplement your list with analytics. As you’re
and uses customer data and individual behaviors, col- pulling together your list, you might find you already
lected from a variety of sources, to inform and drive per- have some demographic and behavioral information
sonalized interactions in real time. that provides valuable customer insights. Feel free
to supplement your customer records with these
Learn how to build comprehensive personas and provide insights, but keep in mind that information such as
a firm go-to-market foundation for your marketing cam- “active on Twitter but not Facebook” or “Always at-
paigns, considering Silverpop’s following tips: tends XYZ conference” is usually too high-level to
help you create differentiated messaging. So, don’t
1. Communicate your mission. As the marketing exec- forgo the interview process because you already
utive, sponsoring your buyer persona project, let your have a lot of information about your customers and
sales management know what the project is and that “think” you know what you need.
you’ll be contacting recent wins, as well as clients that
deferred their buying decision or purchased from 4. Conduct thorough interviews. To help make sure
competitors, to ask them if they would be willing to you get the most out of your interviews, you’ll want
participate in an interview. Explain that they are going to approach these conversations like a professional
to get some key upgrades to their sales tool kit at the investigative journalist. For starters, this means re-
conclusion of the project. membering to turn on the tape recorder and remind-
ing the interviewee that you’re doing so. If you don’t
2. Develop a high-quality list of recent buyers to in- have that fearless “get to the bottom of it” mentality,
terview. Look at sales history in your CRM or order then you’ll need to get someone else to do the inter-
management system and run a report of recent pur- views. Whoever is doing the interviews should ask
chasers. If you also track deferred purchases and lost probing questions and listen carefully to the an-
deals, then include them in the report. Develop a list swers, digging deeper where appropriate as custom-
of about 50 to 75 potential interviewees. Leverage ers are sharing their insights on how their evaluation
your inside sales team, call center or support desk to and buying process went. The goal should be to find
recruit people for interviews. Send follow-up emails to out: (1) Why interviewees decided to look for a new
those that you leave voice mails for explaining what product or solution; (2) What brands they initially
the project is about, letting them know that the inter- considered (and why); (3) How they evaluated those
view will be recorded, and asking for their help. Hope- brands, what was important to them and what con-
36 Asian eMarketing - November 2015 eCommerce & Customer Lifetime
