Whenever people ask for a primer on inbound marketing, I always start by talking about buyer personas. Why? Because without knowing who your ideal customers are -- their backgrounds, goals, challenges, and so on -- it's very difficult to create an effective marketing strategy to attract more of those types of people. Without understanding your ideal customers inside and out -- and integrating that research across your entire marketing funnel -- you risk stifling the growth of your business.
But one of the hardest parts of creating those buyer personas is coming up with all of the questions that will shape your buyer persona research. What are the key things you need to know about your ideal customers in order to really understand who they are and what motivates them? How do you even begin to answer these questions?
Here comes the good news. Over time, as our team has spoken with more and more marketers about the buyer personas research process, we got to thinking: Is there any way we can make the question-and-answer process even easier -- and, dare I say, sexier?
That's when we came up with the MakeMyPersona tool, an interactive web tool that generates buyer personas for you once you answer a series of questions about your ideal customers.
Here's how it works: First, it'll ask you all the questions about your ideal customer that'll help you build out your persona. (And don't worry, it'll guide you through the process of how to answer them, too.) Then, it'll generate a buyer persona for you based on your answers -- in the form of an editable Word document that you can edit and expand on later. You can also select an image for your persona to help bring them to life and make them more relatable for everyone in your organisation.
Like the sound of that? Click here to get started.
Want to learn a little more about how to use the MakeMyPersona tool? Here's how it works.
How to Use the MakeMyPersona Tool
Using the MakeMyPersona tool to create your buyer persona couldn't be easier. Here's all you need to do:
1) Go to makemypersona.com and click the button that says, 'Start Making My Persona!'
2) Answer the questions in the tool as best you can.
Developing your buyer persona takes some research, so don't worry if you can't complete every question in great detail right now. We'll send you your persona in an editable Word document so you can expand on it later.
Give your persona a name and select an image so you can put a face to that name. Remember, buyer personas are fictional representations of our ideal customers. They are not real people, so you can feel free to generalise the behaviours of your top customers when thinking about your answers.
Note: Survey tools like SurveyMonkey and QuestionPro are good ways to gain information for persona research if you don't have a good customer database to tap into.
3) We'll send you your customised buyer persona within 15 minutes.
Once you've completed all of the questions, make sure you give us a valid email address we can send your customised persona to. It can take up to fifteen minutes to generate your persona, so go grab a coffee and high-five some co-workers when you tell them you're cooking up something really special. By the time you get back, you'll have something that looks a little like this waiting for you in your inbox:
Once you receive your persona, check over your answers and see which ones require a little more research. (If you're stuck, check out these great tips for researching buyer personas.)
4) Share your persona(s) with your entire organisation.
Buyer personas help bridge the gap across all the different teams in a single organisation by aligning their idea of who they're selling to. The trick is getting each team to adopt them and integrate them into the way they think about and speak with customers and prospects.
Once you and your immediate team are happy with the final persona(s), here are some ideas for how to get the message across:
- Save your persona as a PDF and email it to the entire organisation. In the email, explain what buyer personas are and why they're important, and then introduce yours to everyone in the company.
- Present your new persona(s) in your next company meeting and explain why they are important and how they play a part in what everyone does.
- Think about this persona every time you create a piece of content and ask yourself: Is it helping them achieve their goals or solve their challenges?
- Print out a few copies and put them on the walls around your office.
- If you're a HubSpot customer, use the persona tool within HubSpot to get a holistic view of how each of your personas are performing across the funnel. (And if you're not a HubSpot customer, feel free to take a demo.)
5) Share the MakeMyPersona tool with your marketer friends.
Share the MakeMyPersona tool with your social networks to pass on the gift of simple and quick buyer persona creation. Trust us, sharing helpful content to your social networks is the best way to grow your following and increase engagement. Simply click the image below to tweet about it:
Try it out, and then let us know what you think in the comment section below.
Topics: Inbound Marketing Buyer Personas
