If you have a love/hate relationship with buyer personas, you’re not alone. According to a 2016 survey by Customer Think, 72 percent of marketers are familiar with these personas, and 60 percent have created their first persona within the last two years.
Unfortunately, lots of marketers are confused about how to use their personas or are frustrated that their personas are not producing the hoped-for results.
For this reason, buyer personas have been criticized as an exercise which, although well-intentioned, can distract marketers from actually producing meaningful deliverables.
So, let’s get practical.
A typical buyer persona contains a lot of “touchy-feely” stuff: the interests, values, behaviors and pain points that motivate a particular market niche, all wrapped up in a cutesy name and a stock photo picture to match. That’s nice, but it often isn’t all that useful when it comes to marketing metrics like cost per click (CPC) or return on investment (ROI).
However, if you add a few cold, hard financial facts to a buyer persona, you can instantly start to use it to refine your marketing budget. Now, I know, this isn’t a typical way to use personas, but it’s a great way to start using them to actually change your business.
With that in mind, let’s take a look at three financial aspects of buyer personas and how to use them to build a better budget.
Comments