What makes an effective persona?
B2B Marketers face many challenges and when it comes to personas the number one challenge is an internal one – helping the organization as a whole understand the value of personas.
Luckily, there is ample evidence that investing in persona research is well worth the effort. These three facts prove personas can drive tangible value to your organization and can help make your business case to invest now.
71% of companies who exceed revenue and lead goals have documented personas vs. 37% who simply meet goals and 26% who miss them Source: Buyer Insights Benchmark
Marketers who use personas and map content to the buyer’s journey enjoy 73% higher conversions from response to marketing qualified lead (MQL) Source: Aberdeen Research
Customer centric companies are 60% more profitable than non-customer centric organizations Source: Deloitte & Touche
persona attributes
Once you decide to make buyer personas a priority it's important that you put in the grunt work necessary to ensure they are valuable. The chart below compares those organizations who exceed, meet and miss lead and revenue goals and what attributes they include in their personas.
To be effective your personas have to go beyond demographic information like title and education level. Including organizational goals & priorities, drivers and motivators, fears and challenges and buying process information are equally important to applying what you learn to day to day business operations.
Read the full benchmark study to identify additional advice and a clear roadmap for creating and using personas to meet, and even exceed, revenue and lead goals.
Feeling overwhelmed? I'm available to answer all your questions and to get you started on your persona journey the right way. You can reach me via samantha.stone@marketingadvisorynetwork.com, LinkedIn or tweet me.