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Adele Revella
Buyer Personas
Cover image: © iStock.com/skodonnell
Cover design: Michael J. Freeland
Copyright © 2015 by Buyer Persona Institute. All rights reserved.
5 Rings of Buying Insight is the trademark of Buyer Persona Institute. All rights reserved.
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Published simultaneously in Canada.
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DEDICATION
FOREWORD
Back in 2007, I gushed enthusiastically on my blog about the GoPro digital camera, which I had purchased to take photos and videos while surfing. I was a very early adopter (the digital version had been out only a month).
The clever marketers at GoPro focused on creating cameras that address the specific problems faced by consumers, in my case a camera I could take surfing. Not long after my original post, I interviewed Nick Woodman, Founder and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of GoPro, who told me how his company makes decisions. “Our solutions could never evolve from a boardroom discussion,” he told me. “We go straight to the source. We don't ask our grandmother what she thinks about our motorsport mounts apparatus; we ask race car drivers.”
Although he didn't call what he was doing buyer persona research, Nick leads a company that builds product and marketing strategies using the ideas that you'll read about in these pages.
So how is GoPro doing now, seven years after the first digital camera was launched and I first wrote about the company? Sales have doubled every year, with the company reporting $279 million in revenue for the three months ending September 30, 2014. This rapid growth allowed GoPro to go public on the stock market in 2014. From zero revenue to a billion dollars a year in less than a decade! As I write this, the company has a market capitalization of $10 billion, making Nick a billionaire. GoPro has left its competitors in the dust through an intense focus on understanding their buyers' expectations!
In this book you will learn how to gain insights into your buyer's mind-set so that you can create and market what your buyers are seeking. You'll see how to differentiate the needs of distinct groups of buyers – in the case of GoPro not just digital camera buyers but surfers, race car drivers, and skydivers – in buyer personas that guide your company to breakthrough success.
This approach is utterly different from most companies. Either they fail to differentiate their markets and create nonspecific marketing for everyone, or they create approaches to segments based on their own product-centric view of the world.
Think about the websites you've visited. Have you noticed that sometimes you can glance at a site (or product page) and instantly know that it will not be helpful? I experience that feeling nearly every day. I might be shopping for something – say, a hotel for a family vacation in Tobago. So I go to Google and just search. Because I'm in the research phase of my decision, I'm looking for a site that will educate and inform me, not one that is chock-full of jargon and hype. I'm browsing and not ready to buy, so I'm not interested in a sales come-on. I'm expecting that the people who built the site have anticipated my need for helpful information. Yes, I am interested in booking a room at some point, but not until someone educates me about my options. What should I look for in Tobago? Should I be on the beach? Which beach? What's the trade-off between an all-inclusive versus à la carte experience? What's the price range? What are the advantages of a big resort compared with a small, intimate inn?
Usually I sample a few sites that are just terrible, filled with gobbledygook and corporate drivel. When that happens, I'm gone in a split second, clicking away, never to return. You know what I'm talking about, right? You make a decision immediately. It's a gut feeling, isn't it?
In contrast, a few sites have valuable and useful information. In fact, sometimes I feel that a site has been developed especially for me! It's as if someone read my mind and built a site based on my needs. The information I wanted was right there when I wanted to find it, telling me everything I needed to know.
It's not a coincidence when it feels like a company's marketing message and content was created especially for you. It means a marketer somewhere did his or her job well. It means that they took the time to understand their buyers' goals, needs, and objections. This isn't one of those egotistical companies that doesn't care about its customers. When the company takes the time to understand my questions and answer them through a video, a few blog posts, or a Q&A, I trust that company. And guess where I am inclined to buy? Yes, the place that was helpful, even if their price is higher than their competition's.
Adele Revella taught me about buyer personas nearly a decade ago, and it was one of the most important revelations I've had as a marketer. If you've read any of my recent bestselling books or seen one of my live presentations, you know I talk a lot about buyer personas. The concept of buyer personas is so essential to good marketing and sales that I've been bugging Adele to write this book for years. And I'm glad she did. Once you dig into the concept of buyer personas, you too will learn how to transform your marketing and your business.
You'll learn that buyer persona research ensures that you market using the voice of your buyer, not of your founder, CEO, product manager, or public relations (PR) agency staffer. This builds a bond of trust with your buyers that leads them into the buying process, making your salespeople's work easier and quicker.
Organizations that take the time to understand