The Startup Distribution Engine: Why You Need One and How to Build It

As a startup founder or marketing leader, you've likely heard the mantra “distribution is everything.” But what does that really mean, and how do you put it into practice?

Building a great product is hard, but it’s only half the battle. The real challenge is getting that product in front of the right customers — repeatedly, and at scale.

For most startups, this is where things fall apart. In my experience, many founders either get stuck trying to sell to fewer customers at a higher price or chase thousands of lower-priced customers. As a result, they end up stretching their resources too thin and fail to create sustainable growth.

The solution is to build a scalable distribution engine. But how do you set up a system that consistently delivers results, while still balancing your current channels and marketing strategy?

In a recent Marketing Against the Grain episode, Kieran and I unpack why startups need to prioritize distribution from day one — and how to design a distribution system that works.

Check Your Numbers: Why a Startup Distribution Strategy is Critical

Let's get real about the math. Most Series A or B startups are selling to mid-market companies with annual contract values of $5,000-$12,000. To achieve the growth investors expect, you have two options:

1. Go upmarket and increase your ACV to $250,000+. This is incredibly difficult and, in my experience, most fail.
2. Acquire thousands of customers at your current price point. This requires a powerful distribution engine.

The reality is, most startups never invest enough time in building that engine — and without it, they’re at a standstill.

The key is to design a distribution system that's both predictable and high-leverage. Why? Because predictability gives you forecasting power, while leverage allows you to acquire customers efficiently.

Here’s how to approach it.

How to Build a Startup Distribution Engine

Having worked with countless startups (and helped build HubSpot's own distribution engine from the ground up), Kieran and I have learned a thing or two about mastering distribution. Here are our top four tips.

1. Identify your product-channel fit.

Startups often talk about product-market fit — but just as critical is product-channel fit. In other words: which distribution channels best align with your product, attract customers, and allow for repeatable growth at scale?

At HubSpot, for example, we built our distribution strategy alongside our product development. Since our product was built around inbound marketing, we focused on channels like content marketing and SEO, which attracted our target audience while simultaneously (and conveniently) showcasing the actual value of our own product.

By aligning our distribution strategy with what HubSpot was designed to do — inbound marketing — we ensured that both our product and channels organically grew together in a way that was scalable and repeatable.

2. Balance predictability and creativity.

One of the toughest challenges of building a startup distribution engine is balancing predictability with creativity. You need reliable, predictable channels to fuel steady growth, but you also need to take creative risks to find the high-leverage opportunities that will propel your business forward.

A great example here is Abercrombie & Fitch. Once a brand in decline, they reimagined their distribution strategy by using influencers and social video to reach a new, younger audience.

While they still relied on predictable channels like social media, they added a creative twist by rebranding their image and using influencers to drive authenticity. This balance helped them thrive — outpacing even fast-growing companies like Nvidia for a period.

At HubSpot, we followed a similar path. In the early days, paid advertising drove about 50% of our demand, providing predictability. But as we scaled, we invested more in creative, high-leverage channels like search, flipping the ratio to where search eventually generated 60% of our demand — an absolute game changer for our scaling strategy.

Pro tip: Look at affiliate programs or creator collaborations to add creative twists to predictable channels. These types of partnerships can offer unique distribution angles that set you apart from competitors.

3. Find unique leverage points.

As Kieran points out during the podcast, the most successful distribution strategies find a unique angle within existing channels. Especially when a channel is already crowded, it’s no longer enough to just participate — you have to stand out.

A great example of this is Genius.com, which became the top lyric site by adding user-generated content like annotations to song lyrics. This feature increased each page’s value and helped them rank higher in search engines — not because they had the best product, but because they found a new way to use user interaction to boost visibility and engagement.

Pro tip: Segment your distribution channels into “known” (predictable) and “unknown” (risky, high-impact) categories. This helps you balance stable growth while testing new, high-upside channels.

4. Find asymmetric opportunities.

Distribution success often comes from identifying asymmetric opportunities — channels or strategies that offer disproportionately high returns with relatively low input. These opportunities typically arise from an ability to see what others miss.

As Kieran explains, “To get real leverage in distribution, you need someone who can creatively explore unproven areas while still applying process and rigor.” This means your team can’t just be focused on optimizing what’s already working — they need to be competitive, inventive, and unafraid to experiment.

A powerful example of this was a company I worked with in Brazil, which was targeting heads of logistics in a niche B2B market. Instead of going after traditional channels, we found an asymmetric opportunity by licensing popular business content (like James Clear's Atomic Habits) and adapting it into Portuguese. This created a unique, localized offering that resonated with their audience in a way no one else was doing.

Don’t Neglect Distribution

Distribution isn’t a side concern for startups — it’s everything. To scale your business, you need a startup distribution engine that’s both predictable and capable of delivering high-leverage growth.

By focusing on the right channels, balancing predictability with creativity, and always looking for asymmetric opportunities, you’ll be in a much stronger position to grow your business.

To learn more about marketing startup distribution engine strategies, check out the full episode of Marketing Against the Grain below:

This blog series is in partnership with Marketing Against the Grain, the video podcast. It digs deeper into ideas shared by marketing leaders Kipp Bodnar (HubSpot’s CMO) and Kieran Flanagan (SVP, Marketing at HubSpot) as they unpack growth strategies and learn from standout founders and peers.

from Marketing https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/startup-distribution-engine

As a startup founder or marketing leader, you've likely heard the mantra “distribution is everything.” But what does that really mean, and how do you put it into practice?

Building a great product is hard, but it’s only half the battle. The real challenge is getting that product in front of the right customers — repeatedly, and at scale.

For most startups, this is where things fall apart. In my experience, many founders either get stuck trying to sell to fewer customers at a higher price or chase thousands of lower-priced customers. As a result, they end up stretching their resources too thin and fail to create sustainable growth.

The solution is to build a scalable distribution engine. But how do you set up a system that consistently delivers results, while still balancing your current channels and marketing strategy?

In a recent Marketing Against the Grain episode, Kieran and I unpack why startups need to prioritize distribution from day one — and how to design a distribution system that works.

Check Your Numbers: Why a Startup Distribution Strategy is Critical

Let's get real about the math. Most Series A or B startups are selling to mid-market companies with annual contract values of $5,000-$12,000. To achieve the growth investors expect, you have two options:

1. Go upmarket and increase your ACV to $250,000+. This is incredibly difficult and, in my experience, most fail.
2. Acquire thousands of customers at your current price point. This requires a powerful distribution engine.

The reality is, most startups never invest enough time in building that engine — and without it, they’re at a standstill.

The key is to design a distribution system that's both predictable and high-leverage. Why? Because predictability gives you forecasting power, while leverage allows you to acquire customers efficiently.

Here’s how to approach it.

How to Build a Startup Distribution Engine

Having worked with countless startups (and helped build HubSpot's own distribution engine from the ground up), Kieran and I have learned a thing or two about mastering distribution. Here are our top four tips.

1. Identify your product-channel fit.

Startups often talk about product-market fit — but just as critical is product-channel fit. In other words: which distribution channels best align with your product, attract customers, and allow for repeatable growth at scale?

At HubSpot, for example, we built our distribution strategy alongside our product development. Since our product was built around inbound marketing, we focused on channels like content marketing and SEO, which attracted our target audience while simultaneously (and conveniently) showcasing the actual value of our own product.

By aligning our distribution strategy with what HubSpot was designed to do — inbound marketing — we ensured that both our product and channels organically grew together in a way that was scalable and repeatable.

2. Balance predictability and creativity.

One of the toughest challenges of building a startup distribution engine is balancing predictability with creativity. You need reliable, predictable channels to fuel steady growth, but you also need to take creative risks to find the high-leverage opportunities that will propel your business forward.

A great example here is Abercrombie & Fitch. Once a brand in decline, they reimagined their distribution strategy by using influencers and social video to reach a new, younger audience.

While they still relied on predictable channels like social media, they added a creative twist by rebranding their image and using influencers to drive authenticity. This balance helped them thrive — outpacing even fast-growing companies like Nvidia for a period.

At HubSpot, we followed a similar path. In the early days, paid advertising drove about 50% of our demand, providing predictability. But as we scaled, we invested more in creative, high-leverage channels like search, flipping the ratio to where search eventually generated 60% of our demand — an absolute game changer for our scaling strategy.

Pro tip: Look at affiliate programs or creator collaborations to add creative twists to predictable channels. These types of partnerships can offer unique distribution angles that set you apart from competitors.

3. Find unique leverage points.

As Kieran points out during the podcast, the most successful distribution strategies find a unique angle within existing channels. Especially when a channel is already crowded, it’s no longer enough to just participate — you have to stand out.

A great example of this is Genius.com, which became the top lyric site by adding user-generated content like annotations to song lyrics. This feature increased each page’s value and helped them rank higher in search engines — not because they had the best product, but because they found a new way to use user interaction to boost visibility and engagement.

Pro tip: Segment your distribution channels into “known” (predictable) and “unknown” (risky, high-impact) categories. This helps you balance stable growth while testing new, high-upside channels.

4. Find asymmetric opportunities.

Distribution success often comes from identifying asymmetric opportunities — channels or strategies that offer disproportionately high returns with relatively low input. These opportunities typically arise from an ability to see what others miss.

As Kieran explains, “To get real leverage in distribution, you need someone who can creatively explore unproven areas while still applying process and rigor.” This means your team can’t just be focused on optimizing what’s already working — they need to be competitive, inventive, and unafraid to experiment.

A powerful example of this was a company I worked with in Brazil, which was targeting heads of logistics in a niche B2B market. Instead of going after traditional channels, we found an asymmetric opportunity by licensing popular business content (like James Clear's Atomic Habits) and adapting it into Portuguese. This created a unique, localized offering that resonated with their audience in a way no one else was doing.

Don’t Neglect Distribution

Distribution isn’t a side concern for startups — it’s everything. To scale your business, you need a startup distribution engine that’s both predictable and capable of delivering high-leverage growth.

By focusing on the right channels, balancing predictability with creativity, and always looking for asymmetric opportunities, you’ll be in a much stronger position to grow your business.

To learn more about marketing startup distribution engine strategies, check out the full episode of Marketing Against the Grain below:

This blog series is in partnership with Marketing Against the Grain, the video podcast. It digs deeper into ideas shared by marketing leaders Kipp Bodnar (HubSpot’s CMO) and Kieran Flanagan (SVP, Marketing at HubSpot) as they unpack growth strategies and learn from standout founders and peers.

via Perfecte news Non connection

What Is a Media Mix & The Most Effective Types [HubSpot Blog Data]

I’ve realized that to truly connect with customers, it’s essential to be everywhere they are — whether that’s on social media, email, websites, or even traditional outlets like TV and radio. This is where a solid media mix comes into play.

By using multiple channels strategically, I can deliver messages more effectively, ensuring they reach the right people at the right time.

But how does this help you plan better campaigns? And why has it become such a critical part of modern marketing strategies? I’ll break down how a strong media mix works, share some compelling stats, and highlight an example of a brand that is nailing it to take their campaigns to the next level.

Table of Contents

• What is a media mix?
• Media Mix Example
• Media Mix Stats in 2025
• Media Mix Optimization
• Media Mix Modeling
• Tips for Optimizing Your Media Mix

A media mix is another term for an overview of the channels businesses choose to execute their marketing strategies on. Ultimately, media mix optimization is the process of analyzing the performance of those channels.

Think about the last campaign you saw from one of your favorite brands. What did they do differently that really clicked with you? By incorporating a media mix into your yearly planning, you can narrow down what resonates with your audience.

Media Mix Example

Theory is great and all, but it’s important to see this approach in action. I immediately think of makeup brand The Lip Bar’s recent campaign introducing their limited edition HBCU lip gloss collection.

To build anticipation and drive demand for this limited product line, The Lip Bar launched a multi-channel campaign that reached audiences both online and offline.

First up, website.

Source

When you land on the brand’s homepage, you’ll see an image of the CEO with the following sentence “Introducing HBCU lip gloss collection. Limited edition sheer lip glosses inspired by our HBCU girlies.”

Upon clicking on the image, you’ll arrive at a landing page that displays the full collection of lip glosses and explains the concept behind this limited edition.

The second digital channel the brand leveraged for this campaign is YouTube, publishing a 59-second video celebrating HBCU culture paired with the lip gloss.

Source

Moving offline, I love how the brand also showed up at FAMU’s homecoming and set up a pop-up shop. They advertised on Instagram to get people to their in-person event.

Source

So, what’s the conclusion to draw here? The benefit of using a media mix is to leverage different strategies to see which tactics work and lead to better conversions.

I think The Lip Bar’s recent campaign is a great example of how any brand can leverage channels differently to reach the same marketing goal.

Media Mix Stats in 2025

Things have changed significantly in the last couple of years, especially due to the advent of AI. So, how are marketers tackling different channels and campaigns? The situation is evolving, so I’ll share the latest.

• 60% of brands plan to increase their media budgets, a significant rise from last year’s 29%.
• 35% of brands are shifting focus towards brand advertising over performance advertising.
• 56% of brands are reducing spend on linear TV, while 85% are increasing investments in Connected/Advanced TV, and 83% in Digital Video.
• 86% of U.S. B2C marketing executives are prioritizing finding better ways to reach Gen Zers and Millennials.
• 73% of marketers face pressure to achieve more with less, with 64% reporting insufficient budgets for their strategies.

Likewise, our extensive in-house research reveals the following:

• 81% of video marketers use social media as their primary channel for sharing or hosting marketing videos.
• 67% of marketers report that sharing marketing videos on social media platforms like YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok yields the highest ROI.
• 43% of marketers use social media as a marketing channel, with Facebook and Instagram providing the best ROI.
• 50% of marketers leverage video in their marketing strategy, closely followed by images at 47%.
• 91% of businesses use video as a marketing tool, highlighting its dominance in the marketing industry.

Media Mix Optimization

Now that you know what a media mix is, how do you find the right mix for your brand and product?

That’s where media mix optimization comes in. Based on data from your previous campaigns and audience research, you will be able to identify the best channels to reach your audience — and then send your message across those various media.

I think optimizing your media mix is important because it will allow you to invest more time and money into marketing strategies that are best suited for your audiences.

When you optimize a marketing media mix, this means looking at the analytics and ROI of various marketing strategies. This can be anything from engagement data of social media platforms to views on the newest commercial.

Enter media mix modeling. If media mix optimization is the “what,” modeling is the “how.” Every model can (and should) look different, depending on your marketing and broader business goal.

Media mix models can be used to analyze the relationship between a dependent variable and an independent variable.

For instance, let’s say my business has a question like, “How did paying for a sponsored tweet affect overall blog traffic?” My business’s media mix model should then accurately depict how a dependent variable — like overall blog traffic — relates to an independent variable, such as investing in X.

For businesses still deciding if a media mix optimization is a good idea for them, I’ve put together key tips to guide you when creating a media mix model. Let’s explore those next.

Tips for Optimizing Your Media Mix

1. Collect personal-level data.

Here, you need to find and focus on analytics that will help provide an accurate picture of how customers engage with your media mix.

Analytics software is expansive and offers an array of tools for use. If you ask me, there’s no reason to rely on anything other than the HubSpot Marketing Hub.

I would also advise against having too many metrics; this can be confusing and lead to inaccurate data. Hence, the best plan is to have an idea of which metrics you need to track so they can be right from the beginning.

A normal media mix optimization process can take anywhere from a few months to a year. So, collecting the right information at the beginning contributes to getting the most accurate information overall.

2. Have a robust reporting process.

When using a media mix, you often combine online and offline strategies. With this in mind, it can be more difficult to measure the impact of a billboard compared to a paid social ad.

That means you’ll have to think outside of the box when evaluating your media mix. For instance, while an online ad will have clear conversion rates you can find, a billboard may require some creative tracking.

Perhaps, you can track the uptick in branded search volume or improved brand recall.

This requires having a robust reporting process that accounts for the events you’ll be tracking — both online and offline.

3. Choose the right platform.

Marketing teams that use CMS or analytics software are already ahead of the game. Software like this is essential to optimizing a media mix because it can give you numbers that would otherwise take some time to figure out manually.

A brand can analyze its media mix with the use of platforms that collect engagement data in real time and compile that data into tracking reports.

I recommend looking for a platform that can give a holistic view of results across the board, so results will maintain consistency. It’s also good to choose software that specializes in the marketing channels you’re using at the time.

Because optimizing is measuring a lot of different data at once, stick to as few systems as possible.

For businesses that are in the market for a CMS, Content Hub is a great option that is easy to use for brands of any size.

4. Analyze the data.

I’ve been talking a lot about the kind of data and analyzing that needs to be done in a media mix optimization, but another important factor is being able to interpret and understand that data.

It’s no secret that in the marketing world, there is an abundance of processes and acronyms floating around. While first getting into the groove of understanding them and what they mean can be intimidating, it’s important to know the data being collected and how to use it to your advantage.

For instance, if a marketing team had especially high click-to-open rates for weekly newsletters, that’s useful information to infer that the next campaign could benefit greatly from an email marketing rollout. Alternatively, if a marketing team has no idea what a click-to-open rate is, those numbers aren’t going to be helpful — just a little confusing.

Reading data to understand its usefulness is just as important as collecting it.

5. Consider public perception.

Knowing how the public perceives your brand can help fill in some interpretation gaps during the modeling process. In the media mix model, think about how to fit in customer opinion. That way, the numbers will have some customer opinions to define them.

There are a couple of ways I suggest you do this:

• Monitor brand mentions. To better understand your brand perception, monitor your brand mentions on social media. Take note of the positives, the negatives, and the questions.
• NPS survey. You can also create a survey to know how your customers feel about your company and its services and use a net promoter score (NPS).

An NPS asks customers how likely they are to recommend a business to a friend. Knowing this will aid in figuring out how a business fares among the competition in the market. It will also assist in future marketing endeavors.

• Track relevant metrics. Keeping a pace of your metrics like brand awareness, brand loyalty, and customer satisfaction can help you gauge how your brand is doing in the public’s eye and where you could improve.

These methods ultimately give the media mix optimization reigns to the customer.

Takeaways

My biggest takeaway is that you have to advertise through a variety of media in 2025. Gone are the days of simple, one-stop-shop advertising. But to effectively put your message in front of your target audience, you need to optimize your media mix with real data to know where your audience is and how to reach them.

Taking the time to optimize your strategy will ultimately save you time and direct your resources to the right channels.

Editor's Note: This post was originally published in February 2020 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

from Marketing https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/media-mix

I’ve realized that to truly connect with customers, it’s essential to be everywhere they are — whether that’s on social media, email, websites, or even traditional outlets like TV and radio. This is where a solid media mix comes into play.

By using multiple channels strategically, I can deliver messages more effectively, ensuring they reach the right people at the right time.

But how does this help you plan better campaigns? And why has it become such a critical part of modern marketing strategies? I’ll break down how a strong media mix works, share some compelling stats, and highlight an example of a brand that is nailing it to take their campaigns to the next level.

Table of Contents

• What is a media mix?
• Media Mix Example
• Media Mix Stats in 2025
• Media Mix Optimization
• Media Mix Modeling
• Tips for Optimizing Your Media Mix

A media mix is another term for an overview of the channels businesses choose to execute their marketing strategies on. Ultimately, media mix optimization is the process of analyzing the performance of those channels.

Think about the last campaign you saw from one of your favorite brands. What did they do differently that really clicked with you? By incorporating a media mix into your yearly planning, you can narrow down what resonates with your audience.

Media Mix Example

Theory is great and all, but it’s important to see this approach in action. I immediately think of makeup brand The Lip Bar’s recent campaign introducing their limited edition HBCU lip gloss collection.

To build anticipation and drive demand for this limited product line, The Lip Bar launched a multi-channel campaign that reached audiences both online and offline.

First up, website.

Source

When you land on the brand’s homepage, you’ll see an image of the CEO with the following sentence “Introducing HBCU lip gloss collection. Limited edition sheer lip glosses inspired by our HBCU girlies.”

Upon clicking on the image, you’ll arrive at a landing page that displays the full collection of lip glosses and explains the concept behind this limited edition.

The second digital channel the brand leveraged for this campaign is YouTube, publishing a 59-second video celebrating HBCU culture paired with the lip gloss.

Source

Moving offline, I love how the brand also showed up at FAMU’s homecoming and set up a pop-up shop. They advertised on Instagram to get people to their in-person event.

Source

So, what’s the conclusion to draw here? The benefit of using a media mix is to leverage different strategies to see which tactics work and lead to better conversions.

I think The Lip Bar’s recent campaign is a great example of how any brand can leverage channels differently to reach the same marketing goal.

Media Mix Stats in 2025

Things have changed significantly in the last couple of years, especially due to the advent of AI. So, how are marketers tackling different channels and campaigns? The situation is evolving, so I’ll share the latest.

• 60% of brands plan to increase their media budgets, a significant rise from last year’s 29%.
• 35% of brands are shifting focus towards brand advertising over performance advertising.
• 56% of brands are reducing spend on linear TV, while 85% are increasing investments in Connected/Advanced TV, and 83% in Digital Video.
• 86% of U.S. B2C marketing executives are prioritizing finding better ways to reach Gen Zers and Millennials.
• 73% of marketers face pressure to achieve more with less, with 64% reporting insufficient budgets for their strategies.

Likewise, our extensive in-house research reveals the following:

• 81% of video marketers use social media as their primary channel for sharing or hosting marketing videos.
• 67% of marketers report that sharing marketing videos on social media platforms like YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok yields the highest ROI.
• 43% of marketers use social media as a marketing channel, with Facebook and Instagram providing the best ROI.
• 50% of marketers leverage video in their marketing strategy, closely followed by images at 47%.
• 91% of businesses use video as a marketing tool, highlighting its dominance in the marketing industry.

Media Mix Optimization

Now that you know what a media mix is, how do you find the right mix for your brand and product?

That’s where media mix optimization comes in. Based on data from your previous campaigns and audience research, you will be able to identify the best channels to reach your audience — and then send your message across those various media.

I think optimizing your media mix is important because it will allow you to invest more time and money into marketing strategies that are best suited for your audiences.

When you optimize a marketing media mix, this means looking at the analytics and ROI of various marketing strategies. This can be anything from engagement data of social media platforms to views on the newest commercial.

Enter media mix modeling. If media mix optimization is the “what,” modeling is the “how.” Every model can (and should) look different, depending on your marketing and broader business goal.

Media mix models can be used to analyze the relationship between a dependent variable and an independent variable.

For instance, let’s say my business has a question like, “How did paying for a sponsored tweet affect overall blog traffic?” My business’s media mix model should then accurately depict how a dependent variable — like overall blog traffic — relates to an independent variable, such as investing in X.

For businesses still deciding if a media mix optimization is a good idea for them, I’ve put together key tips to guide you when creating a media mix model. Let’s explore those next.

Tips for Optimizing Your Media Mix

1. Collect personal-level data.

Here, you need to find and focus on analytics that will help provide an accurate picture of how customers engage with your media mix.

Analytics software is expansive and offers an array of tools for use. If you ask me, there’s no reason to rely on anything other than the HubSpot Marketing Hub.

I would also advise against having too many metrics; this can be confusing and lead to inaccurate data. Hence, the best plan is to have an idea of which metrics you need to track so they can be right from the beginning.

A normal media mix optimization process can take anywhere from a few months to a year. So, collecting the right information at the beginning contributes to getting the most accurate information overall.

2. Have a robust reporting process.

When using a media mix, you often combine online and offline strategies. With this in mind, it can be more difficult to measure the impact of a billboard compared to a paid social ad.

That means you’ll have to think outside of the box when evaluating your media mix. For instance, while an online ad will have clear conversion rates you can find, a billboard may require some creative tracking.

Perhaps, you can track the uptick in branded search volume or improved brand recall.

This requires having a robust reporting process that accounts for the events you’ll be tracking — both online and offline.

3. Choose the right platform.

Marketing teams that use CMS or analytics software are already ahead of the game. Software like this is essential to optimizing a media mix because it can give you numbers that would otherwise take some time to figure out manually.

A brand can analyze its media mix with the use of platforms that collect engagement data in real time and compile that data into tracking reports.

I recommend looking for a platform that can give a holistic view of results across the board, so results will maintain consistency. It’s also good to choose software that specializes in the marketing channels you’re using at the time.

Because optimizing is measuring a lot of different data at once, stick to as few systems as possible.

For businesses that are in the market for a CMS, Content Hub is a great option that is easy to use for brands of any size.

4. Analyze the data.

I’ve been talking a lot about the kind of data and analyzing that needs to be done in a media mix optimization, but another important factor is being able to interpret and understand that data.

It’s no secret that in the marketing world, there is an abundance of processes and acronyms floating around. While first getting into the groove of understanding them and what they mean can be intimidating, it’s important to know the data being collected and how to use it to your advantage.

For instance, if a marketing team had especially high click-to-open rates for weekly newsletters, that’s useful information to infer that the next campaign could benefit greatly from an email marketing rollout. Alternatively, if a marketing team has no idea what a click-to-open rate is, those numbers aren’t going to be helpful — just a little confusing.

Reading data to understand its usefulness is just as important as collecting it.

5. Consider public perception.

Knowing how the public perceives your brand can help fill in some interpretation gaps during the modeling process. In the media mix model, think about how to fit in customer opinion. That way, the numbers will have some customer opinions to define them.

There are a couple of ways I suggest you do this:

• Monitor brand mentions. To better understand your brand perception, monitor your brand mentions on social media. Take note of the positives, the negatives, and the questions.
• NPS survey. You can also create a survey to know how your customers feel about your company and its services and use a net promoter score (NPS).

An NPS asks customers how likely they are to recommend a business to a friend. Knowing this will aid in figuring out how a business fares among the competition in the market. It will also assist in future marketing endeavors.

• Track relevant metrics. Keeping a pace of your metrics like brand awareness, brand loyalty, and customer satisfaction can help you gauge how your brand is doing in the public’s eye and where you could improve.

These methods ultimately give the media mix optimization reigns to the customer.

Takeaways

My biggest takeaway is that you have to advertise through a variety of media in 2025. Gone are the days of simple, one-stop-shop advertising. But to effectively put your message in front of your target audience, you need to optimize your media mix with real data to know where your audience is and how to reach them.

Taking the time to optimize your strategy will ultimately save you time and direct your resources to the right channels.

Editor's Note: This post was originally published in February 2020 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

via Perfecte news Non connection

How to Create Detailed Buyer Personas for Your Business [+ Free Persona Template]

We marketers know that marketing according to data points alone isn’t enough to get meaningful engagement — that’s the job of a buyer persona.

While demographic survey results are great, many factors of customer behavior are needed to create a well-rounded and detailed buyer persona.

In this piece, I’ll explain what a buyer persona is and show you how to combine different research methods to form and create detailed buyer personas. In just a few thoughtful steps, you’ll walk away with consumer stories and profiles representing your customer base.

The strongest buyer personas are based on market research and insights you gather from your existing and potential customer base (through surveys, interviews, etc.).

Buyer personas are unique to every company, and so is their name for them. You may see buyer personas referred to as “customer personas,” “marketing personas,” “audience personas,” or “target personas.” Each has the same meaning but will look unique to your company.

You might have as few as one or two personas, or even 10+ — it all depends on your business.

What type of business needs to create buyer personas?

All types of businesses should create (and will benefit from) buyer personas because every business needs customers or clients to be successful.

Your negative personas can include:

• Customers who are too advanced for your product or service.
• Potential customers who are just too expensive to acquire.
• People who only engage with your content to gain knowledge.

Whatever the exclusion factor is, the knowledge is valuable because it helps you narrow down your strategic execution so that your inputs directly contribute to your results.

Why are buyer personas important to your business?

According to our research, most marketers lack crucial information about their audience, so they struggle to make personalized content.

Before diving into the buyer persona creation process, I want to pause to understand the impact of well-developed buyer personas on your business (specifically, your marketing efforts).

1. Buyer personas help you personalize your marketing.

Personalization is the main reason your buyer personas are essential, and it’s only possible when you truly understand your audience. Customers appreciate personalization, as 96% of marketers say it increases the likelihood of buyers becoming repeat customers, and 94% say it increases sales.

Those stats represent my experience as a consumer: I’m more likely to be a fan of and give repeat business to brands that know what I like and cater to my interests. For example, a brand email that lets me know a product on my wishlist is on sale will, more likely than not, turn me into a loyal and appreciative customer.

2. Buyer personas inform product development.

Extensive research into your target customer helps you with your product development process. You’ll know what your ideal customer experiences on a day-to-day basis, which can inspire innovative improvements to your product.

So, for example, say I sell kitchen utensils. My buyer persona research tells me my ideal customer lives in the South, where grilling is common. I would likely find success developing and offering grilling utensils or improving my existing offerings to work in indoor and outdoor environments.

3. Buyer personas enable the optimization of demand generation, lead generation, and lead nurturing content.

Buyer persona research tells you how your ideal customer wants to hear from you, which can influence your demand generation strategies.

For example, if your target audience prefers SMS communication, you might respond by creating SMS lead nurturing campaigns instead of emails.

4. Buyer personas help you tailor your product’s messaging to its target audience.

Completed buyer personas help you tailor your content, messaging, product development, and services to meet your target audience’s specific needs, behaviors, and concerns.

This ties back to the personalization I mentioned before: When you speak to your audience with your marketing campaigns, you’re more likely to be effective.

In fact, marketers who offer customers a personalized experience are 215% more likely to say their marketing strategies are effective than those who don’t.

5. Buyer personas enhance targeted marketing strategies.

Creating detailed buyer personas gives you the ability to craft content and messaging that truly connects with your audience. When you dive into each persona’s preferences and behaviors, you’re able to tailor your marketing to specific segments in ways that feel both relevant and effective.

For example, instead of sending nurturing emails to your entire database, you can segment by buyer persona and use a tool, like Marketing Hub, to tailor messaging to what you know about each one.

I’ve found that combining personas with lifecycle stage data works wonders for mapping out and creating highly specific content. When you align your messaging with where your audience is in their journey, it just clicks. If you’re interested in trying this, a content mapping template is a great resource to explore.

Buyer personas are also an excellent tool if you target a niche audience. I run Breaking the Blueprint (BtB), a blog column for minority business owners and entrepreneurs, and the target audience is more specific than the general HubSpot Blog (Black entrepreneurs vs. entrepreneurs as a whole, for example).

Since the target audience is unique, I conducted buyer persona surveys to learn more about their specific interests, needs, and pain points to make sure the content I publish is much more likely to make an impact and be helpful.

Don’t forget about negative personas, either. They’re a game-changer for cutting out unproductive leads. If you identify and exclude those unlikely to convert — like people engaging only for knowledge or those too advanced for your offering — you can zero in on the prospects that truly matter, saving time and boosting your ROI.

Types of Buyer Personas

While developing your personas, you may ask yourself, “What are the different types of buyer personas?” From there, it’d be simple to adjust one for your business — right?

That’s not exactly how it works — sorry to burst your bubble. Since every business (no matter how many competitors they have) is unique, their buyer personas are unique.

Yes, there are standard attributes you can apply to, say, specific age groups, but even those have variation. For example, my mom’s generation overwhelmingly prefers traditional marketing tactics, but she loves Instagram Reels more than anyone I know.

There isn’t a list of universally recognized buyer personas to choose from, nor is there a standard for the number of personas you need. If you’re new to personas, I recommend starting small. You can always develop more as you grow.

In general, companies may have the same or similar categories for their buyer personas (e.g., a marketer, an HR rep, an IT manager, etc.). But, your business’ different personas and the number of them it requires depend on your target audience and what you offer your customers.

This explains why buyer personas are so important: They’re uniquely put together to help your specific business achieve its goals.

What goes into persona development?

We’ve discussed the importance of buyer personas and the (lack of) different types. So now, let’s discuss how you can develop your own.

The main component of buyer persona development is research. Once you’ve done your research, you look for patterns and turn those patterns into actionable tips and strategies you include in your buyer persona.

You’ll also form the team that will play a role in your process. A great place to start is choosing a representative or two from relevant customer-facing teams, especially sales and marketing.

Salespeople have direct communication with customers and insight into their needs, and marketing teams have data about customer behavior.

Once you’ve identified stakeholders, you’ll start conducting your research and gathering your data. Then, you’ll compile your personas and start using them for your marketing campaigns.

Ready to start creating your buyer personas? Let’s dive in.

How to Create a Buyer Persona In 5 Steps

High-quality buyer personas are based on concrete facts about your audience’s interests, behavior, and demographics.

So, the best way to create your buyer personas is through research, surveys, and interviews — all with a mix of customers, prospects, and those outside your contacts database who align with your target audience.

When I created personas for Breaking the Blueprint, I discovered helpful and practical methods for gathering the information you need to develop your personas (you can also further your knowledge on this topic through the free HubSpot Academy course).

1. Research your customer.

Research is the basis of your buyer persona. Without it, personas are based on assumptions.

The information you want to get from your research includes:

• Demographic info. Information like age, gender, education, location, etc., gives you a foundational understanding of who your persona is.
• Behaviors. These include needs, purchasing behavior, brand loyalty, and decision-making process which let you know how people behave as customers, what they respond to, and how they like to interact with preferred businesses.
• Psychographic information. Things like lifestyle, values, and interests give you information about any factors influencing decisions, motivations, and behaviors.
• Goals and objectives. These tell you how your product or service relates to what they’re attempting to achieve.
• Pain points and challenges. These tell you the issues that your persona faces, how your product or service is a solution to their needs, and how to position it as that.
• Industry/professional information. Collect info like job title and responsibilities, tools used, industry, and company size to get a sense of how you fit into their work day (if applicable).

You can separate your research process into two categories: your existing customers and everyone else.

I do want to note that, when collecting demographic information, some people are more comfortable disclosing personal information privately, or some might not want to at all. I recommend making it optional unless it’s a pivotal part of your buyer persona.

Existing Customers

If you already have customers, they’re the best place to start. If you’re building your persona for a new business, you can scroll down to Everyone Else.

You can conduct interviews (face-to-face or otherwise) and send out surveys to learn why they’re your customers. Responses will help you create value propositions and selling points for marketing materials that speak directly to your audience’s interests.

Your historical business data and analytics also offer a wealth of information about your current customers’ purchase history, touchpoints, preferred channels, etc. You can also:

• Check your website traffic analytics to identify useful information about your existing audience, such as demographics, which pages attract the most visitors and why, and what marketing campaigns drive the most traffic.
• Consider your sales team’s feedback on the leads they interact with most. What generalizations can you make about the different types of customers you serve best?
• Analyze customer feedback and support requests.

If you’re having direct conversations, I find it helpful to include descriptive buzzwords and mannerisms you pick up on. This can help your team identify certain personas when talking to prospects.

Everyone Else

Everyone else includes existing leads, prospects, people who have never heard of you, and even those who are negative buyer personas.

I recommend researching these groups second (unless you’re a new business) because you’ll already have a sense of what your ideal customer looks like from the information you’ve gathered about your existing customers. You’ll be more focused on who you talk to and where you look for people to talk to.

Your research into everyone else can include the same things you employed for current customers, as well as:

• Focus groups.
• Look through your contacts database to uncover trends about how certain leads or customers find and consume your content.
• Social listening to see what people talk about online in relation to what you offer, your competitors, and industry as a whole.
• Customers who have churned and left feedback on their reasoning.
• Creating forms to use on your website to capture persona information (like company size).

Now, how do you use your completed research to create your persona? Analyze the information.

2. Analyze available information.

Once you’ve gone through the research process, you’ll have a lot of meaty, raw data about your potential and current customers. But what do you do with it?

How do you distill all of it so it’s easy for everyone to understand all the information you’ve gathered?

Identify patterns and commonalities in your research. Answers to your interview questions, information submitted in lead forms, and insight from the sales team will all help you understand how to be the most relevant to your persona so you can draw them in.

3. Build your persona.

Once you’ve gone through your research and found those patterns, it’s time to start building your persona.

HubSpot’s free Make My Persona generator, as well as our free downloadable persona templates, can help you organize the information you’ve gathered and share it with relevant stakeholders so everyone can develop an in-depth understanding of the people they’re targeting at work.

Use HubSpots free Make My Persona tool.

You can also use this video as an instructional resource:

With our template, the first step is to fill in your persona’s basic demographic information. I recommend this, regardless of the template you use.

Here’s an example of how you might complete Section 1 in your template for one of your personas:

Download HubSpot’s free persona templates.

The second step is to outline what you’ve learned about your persona’s motivations. This is where you’ll distill the information you learned from digging into the “why” during your research.

What keeps your persona up at night? Who do they want to be? Most importantly, tie that all together by telling people how your company can help them.

Download this Template

4. Help your sales team prepare for conversations with your persona.

The personas you create can be even more impactful when you include real quotes from interviews that exemplify what your audience is concerned about, who they are, and what they want. This is where the buzzwords and mannerisms you might have noted during interviews can come in handy.

You can also create a list of the objections they might raise so your sales team can prepare to address those during conversations with prospects.

Download this Template

5. Craft messaging for your persona.

Tell people how to talk about your products/services with your persona. This includes the nitty-gritty vocabulary you should use and a more general elevator pitch that positions your solution in a way that resonates with your persona.

This will help you ensure everyone in your company speaks the same language when conversing with leads and customers.

Download this Template

Finally, make sure you give your persona a name (e.g., Finance Manager Margie, IT Ian, or Landscaper Larry), so everyone internally refers to each persona the same way, allowing for cross-team consistency.

And if you’re a HubSpot customer, you can easily add your persona to Marketing Hub by following this step-by-step setup guide.

Your buyer personas are essential, and so is regularly reviewing and updating them if necessary. I’d recommend an annual review to stay on top of your target audience and how their preferences evolve.

How to Find Interviewees for Researching Buyer Personas

One of the most critical steps to establishing your buyer persona(s) is finding people to speak with to understand who your buyer persona is.

But how do you find these interviewees? There are a few sources I recommend tapping into.

1. Use your current customers.

Your existing customer base is the perfect place to start your interviews. They’ve already purchased and engaged with your company and exemplify your target persona(s).

Don’t just talk to people who love your product and want to spend an hour gushing about you (as good as that feels). Customers who are unhappy with your product will show other patterns that will help you form a solid understanding of your personas.

For example, you might find that some of your less happy customers have bigger teams and need greater collaboration functionality from your product. Or, maybe they find your product too technical and difficult to use. In both cases, you learn something about your product and what your customers’ challenges are.

Another benefit to current customers is that you don’t always need incentives (e.g., gift cards) because they like being heard. Interviewing gives them a chance to tell you about their challenges and what they think of your product. Your customers can then have an impact on the products they use.

Involving them in interviews can also deepen their loyalty to your company. When you reach out, always be clear that your goal is to get their feedback and that you highly value it.

2. Use your prospects.

You can also interview people who have not purchased your product and know little about your brand. Your prospects and leads are great options because you already have their contact information.

I recommend using the information you do have about them (i.e., anything you’ve collected through lead gen forms or website analytics) to figure out who fits your persona.

Tools like Enlyft can help you create custom buyer persona profiles and match your prospects to them to make it easier to find the people you need to talk to.

3. Use your referrals.

Your existing network (coworkers, existing customers, social media contacts, etc.) is a great resource for finding people you’d like to interview and getting an introduction.

You’ll likely get some high-quality interviews with this method, but volume can be lower. Referrals are especially beneficial if you’re heading into new markets or starting fresh without leads or customers.

If you don’t know where to start, I suggest searching on LinkedIn for people who may fit into your target personas and seeing who you share connections with, and reaching out to them for introductions.

4. Use third-party networks.

Third-party networks can help you recruit interviewees completely removed from your company. For example, UserTesting.com lets you run remote user testing. You just have less control over the sessions you run.

Now, let’s go over some tips for recruiting interviewees once you find them.

Tips for Recruiting Buyer Persona Interviewees

As you reach out to potential buyer persona interviewees, here are my tips for improving response rates and running smooth interviews.

• Decide how many people you need to speak to. I wish I could give a set answer, but the number of people you need to interview for a well-rounded persona will vary. I recommend starting with at least three to five for each persona you create and make sure it’s a mix of customers, prospects, and people who don’t know your company. If you reach a point where you can predict what an interviewee is about to stay, you probably have a good enough sample and can call it.
• Create your questions beforehand. After the small talk, you’ll jump into your questions. You want to have your persona interview questions ironed out ahead of time for a seamless interview process; otherwise, you risk looking disorganized and losing attention.
• Use incentives. Incentives give people a reason to participate, especially those who don’t have a relationship with you. A simple gift card is an easy option.
• Make it clear that it isn’t a sales call. This is especially important when dealing with non-customers who are weary of getting stuck on a sales call. Explain that you’re researching and want to learn from them, not sell to them.
• Make it easy to say yes. Take care of everything for your interviewees so they only have to say yes. Suggest times, and be flexible so they can pick what works best for them.

Buyer Persona Examples

I’ll share some examples of completed buyer personas so you can get a better understanding of what they look like.

B2B Buyer Persona Example

The image below is a B2B buyer persona for someone who works in HR. The persona paints a clear picture of the target customer’s struggles and how the business can best meet those needs.

In this case, HR recruiting tools streamline processes, make recruiting easier, and help HR expertly manage their overall job duties.

B2C Buyer Persona Example

The image below is a B2C buyer persona for a music streaming service.

Based on this persona, a streaming service would want to ensure that it has a user-friendly mobile app, sends new music notifications, and makes it easy for users to discover new music related to their interests and share content with friends.

Create Your Buyer Personas

Creating buyer personas helps you understand your target customers on a deeper level and ensures everyone on your team knows how to best target, support, and work with your customers.

When you use your personas to guide decisions, I don’t doubt that you’ll see improvement in your reach, boost your conversions, and increase customer loyalty.

Editor's note: This post was originally published in May 2015 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

from Marketing https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/buyer-persona-research

We marketers know that marketing according to data points alone isn’t enough to get meaningful engagement — that’s the job of a buyer persona.

While demographic survey results are great, many factors of customer behavior are needed to create a well-rounded and detailed buyer persona.

In this piece, I’ll explain what a buyer persona is and show you how to combine different research methods to form and create detailed buyer personas. In just a few thoughtful steps, you’ll walk away with consumer stories and profiles representing your customer base.

The strongest buyer personas are based on market research and insights you gather from your existing and potential customer base (through surveys, interviews, etc.).

Buyer personas are unique to every company, and so is their name for them. You may see buyer personas referred to as “customer personas,” “marketing personas,” “audience personas,” or “target personas.” Each has the same meaning but will look unique to your company.

You might have as few as one or two personas, or even 10+ — it all depends on your business.

What type of business needs to create buyer personas?

All types of businesses should create (and will benefit from) buyer personas because every business needs customers or clients to be successful.

Your negative personas can include:

• Customers who are too advanced for your product or service.
• Potential customers who are just too expensive to acquire.
• People who only engage with your content to gain knowledge.

Whatever the exclusion factor is, the knowledge is valuable because it helps you narrow down your strategic execution so that your inputs directly contribute to your results.

Why are buyer personas important to your business?

According to our research, most marketers lack crucial information about their audience, so they struggle to make personalized content.

Before diving into the buyer persona creation process, I want to pause to understand the impact of well-developed buyer personas on your business (specifically, your marketing efforts).

1. Buyer personas help you personalize your marketing.

Personalization is the main reason your buyer personas are essential, and it’s only possible when you truly understand your audience. Customers appreciate personalization, as 96% of marketers say it increases the likelihood of buyers becoming repeat customers, and 94% say it increases sales.

Those stats represent my experience as a consumer: I’m more likely to be a fan of and give repeat business to brands that know what I like and cater to my interests. For example, a brand email that lets me know a product on my wishlist is on sale will, more likely than not, turn me into a loyal and appreciative customer.

2. Buyer personas inform product development.

Extensive research into your target customer helps you with your product development process. You’ll know what your ideal customer experiences on a day-to-day basis, which can inspire innovative improvements to your product.

So, for example, say I sell kitchen utensils. My buyer persona research tells me my ideal customer lives in the South, where grilling is common. I would likely find success developing and offering grilling utensils or improving my existing offerings to work in indoor and outdoor environments.

3. Buyer personas enable the optimization of demand generation, lead generation, and lead nurturing content.

Buyer persona research tells you how your ideal customer wants to hear from you, which can influence your demand generation strategies.

For example, if your target audience prefers SMS communication, you might respond by creating SMS lead nurturing campaigns instead of emails.

4. Buyer personas help you tailor your product’s messaging to its target audience.

Completed buyer personas help you tailor your content, messaging, product development, and services to meet your target audience’s specific needs, behaviors, and concerns.

This ties back to the personalization I mentioned before: When you speak to your audience with your marketing campaigns, you’re more likely to be effective.

In fact, marketers who offer customers a personalized experience are 215% more likely to say their marketing strategies are effective than those who don’t.

5. Buyer personas enhance targeted marketing strategies.

Creating detailed buyer personas gives you the ability to craft content and messaging that truly connects with your audience. When you dive into each persona’s preferences and behaviors, you’re able to tailor your marketing to specific segments in ways that feel both relevant and effective.

For example, instead of sending nurturing emails to your entire database, you can segment by buyer persona and use a tool, like Marketing Hub, to tailor messaging to what you know about each one.

I’ve found that combining personas with lifecycle stage data works wonders for mapping out and creating highly specific content. When you align your messaging with where your audience is in their journey, it just clicks. If you’re interested in trying this, a content mapping template is a great resource to explore.

Buyer personas are also an excellent tool if you target a niche audience. I run Breaking the Blueprint (BtB), a blog column for minority business owners and entrepreneurs, and the target audience is more specific than the general HubSpot Blog (Black entrepreneurs vs. entrepreneurs as a whole, for example).

Since the target audience is unique, I conducted buyer persona surveys to learn more about their specific interests, needs, and pain points to make sure the content I publish is much more likely to make an impact and be helpful.

Don’t forget about negative personas, either. They’re a game-changer for cutting out unproductive leads. If you identify and exclude those unlikely to convert — like people engaging only for knowledge or those too advanced for your offering — you can zero in on the prospects that truly matter, saving time and boosting your ROI.

Types of Buyer Personas

While developing your personas, you may ask yourself, “What are the different types of buyer personas?” From there, it’d be simple to adjust one for your business — right?

That’s not exactly how it works — sorry to burst your bubble. Since every business (no matter how many competitors they have) is unique, their buyer personas are unique.

Yes, there are standard attributes you can apply to, say, specific age groups, but even those have variation. For example, my mom’s generation overwhelmingly prefers traditional marketing tactics, but she loves Instagram Reels more than anyone I know.

There isn’t a list of universally recognized buyer personas to choose from, nor is there a standard for the number of personas you need. If you’re new to personas, I recommend starting small. You can always develop more as you grow.

In general, companies may have the same or similar categories for their buyer personas (e.g., a marketer, an HR rep, an IT manager, etc.). But, your business’ different personas and the number of them it requires depend on your target audience and what you offer your customers.

This explains why buyer personas are so important: They’re uniquely put together to help your specific business achieve its goals.

What goes into persona development?

We’ve discussed the importance of buyer personas and the (lack of) different types. So now, let’s discuss how you can develop your own.

The main component of buyer persona development is research. Once you’ve done your research, you look for patterns and turn those patterns into actionable tips and strategies you include in your buyer persona.

You’ll also form the team that will play a role in your process. A great place to start is choosing a representative or two from relevant customer-facing teams, especially sales and marketing.

Salespeople have direct communication with customers and insight into their needs, and marketing teams have data about customer behavior.

Once you’ve identified stakeholders, you’ll start conducting your research and gathering your data. Then, you’ll compile your personas and start using them for your marketing campaigns.

Ready to start creating your buyer personas? Let’s dive in.

How to Create a Buyer Persona In 5 Steps

High-quality buyer personas are based on concrete facts about your audience’s interests, behavior, and demographics.

So, the best way to create your buyer personas is through research, surveys, and interviews — all with a mix of customers, prospects, and those outside your contacts database who align with your target audience.

When I created personas for Breaking the Blueprint, I discovered helpful and practical methods for gathering the information you need to develop your personas (you can also further your knowledge on this topic through the free HubSpot Academy course).

1. Research your customer.

Research is the basis of your buyer persona. Without it, personas are based on assumptions.

The information you want to get from your research includes:

• Demographic info. Information like age, gender, education, location, etc., gives you a foundational understanding of who your persona is.
• Behaviors. These include needs, purchasing behavior, brand loyalty, and decision-making process which let you know how people behave as customers, what they respond to, and how they like to interact with preferred businesses.
• Psychographic information. Things like lifestyle, values, and interests give you information about any factors influencing decisions, motivations, and behaviors.
• Goals and objectives. These tell you how your product or service relates to what they’re attempting to achieve.
• Pain points and challenges. These tell you the issues that your persona faces, how your product or service is a solution to their needs, and how to position it as that.
• Industry/professional information. Collect info like job title and responsibilities, tools used, industry, and company size to get a sense of how you fit into their work day (if applicable).

You can separate your research process into two categories: your existing customers and everyone else.

I do want to note that, when collecting demographic information, some people are more comfortable disclosing personal information privately, or some might not want to at all. I recommend making it optional unless it’s a pivotal part of your buyer persona.

Existing Customers

If you already have customers, they’re the best place to start. If you’re building your persona for a new business, you can scroll down to Everyone Else.

You can conduct interviews (face-to-face or otherwise) and send out surveys to learn why they’re your customers. Responses will help you create value propositions and selling points for marketing materials that speak directly to your audience’s interests.

Your historical business data and analytics also offer a wealth of information about your current customers’ purchase history, touchpoints, preferred channels, etc. You can also:

• Check your website traffic analytics to identify useful information about your existing audience, such as demographics, which pages attract the most visitors and why, and what marketing campaigns drive the most traffic.
• Consider your sales team’s feedback on the leads they interact with most. What generalizations can you make about the different types of customers you serve best?
• Analyze customer feedback and support requests.

If you’re having direct conversations, I find it helpful to include descriptive buzzwords and mannerisms you pick up on. This can help your team identify certain personas when talking to prospects.

Everyone Else

Everyone else includes existing leads, prospects, people who have never heard of you, and even those who are negative buyer personas.

I recommend researching these groups second (unless you’re a new business) because you’ll already have a sense of what your ideal customer looks like from the information you’ve gathered about your existing customers. You’ll be more focused on who you talk to and where you look for people to talk to.

Your research into everyone else can include the same things you employed for current customers, as well as:

• Focus groups.
• Look through your contacts database to uncover trends about how certain leads or customers find and consume your content.
• Social listening to see what people talk about online in relation to what you offer, your competitors, and industry as a whole.
• Customers who have churned and left feedback on their reasoning.
• Creating forms to use on your website to capture persona information (like company size).

Now, how do you use your completed research to create your persona? Analyze the information.

2. Analyze available information.

Once you’ve gone through the research process, you’ll have a lot of meaty, raw data about your potential and current customers. But what do you do with it?

How do you distill all of it so it’s easy for everyone to understand all the information you’ve gathered?

Identify patterns and commonalities in your research. Answers to your interview questions, information submitted in lead forms, and insight from the sales team will all help you understand how to be the most relevant to your persona so you can draw them in.

3. Build your persona.

Once you’ve gone through your research and found those patterns, it’s time to start building your persona.

HubSpot’s free Make My Persona generator, as well as our free downloadable persona templates, can help you organize the information you’ve gathered and share it with relevant stakeholders so everyone can develop an in-depth understanding of the people they’re targeting at work.

Use HubSpots free Make My Persona tool.

You can also use this video as an instructional resource:

With our template, the first step is to fill in your persona’s basic demographic information. I recommend this, regardless of the template you use.

Here’s an example of how you might complete Section 1 in your template for one of your personas:

Download HubSpot’s free persona templates.

The second step is to outline what you’ve learned about your persona’s motivations. This is where you’ll distill the information you learned from digging into the “why” during your research.

What keeps your persona up at night? Who do they want to be? Most importantly, tie that all together by telling people how your company can help them.

Download this Template

4. Help your sales team prepare for conversations with your persona.

The personas you create can be even more impactful when you include real quotes from interviews that exemplify what your audience is concerned about, who they are, and what they want. This is where the buzzwords and mannerisms you might have noted during interviews can come in handy.

You can also create a list of the objections they might raise so your sales team can prepare to address those during conversations with prospects.

Download this Template

5. Craft messaging for your persona.

Tell people how to talk about your products/services with your persona. This includes the nitty-gritty vocabulary you should use and a more general elevator pitch that positions your solution in a way that resonates with your persona.

This will help you ensure everyone in your company speaks the same language when conversing with leads and customers.

Download this Template

Finally, make sure you give your persona a name (e.g., Finance Manager Margie, IT Ian, or Landscaper Larry), so everyone internally refers to each persona the same way, allowing for cross-team consistency.

And if you’re a HubSpot customer, you can easily add your persona to Marketing Hub by following this step-by-step setup guide.

Your buyer personas are essential, and so is regularly reviewing and updating them if necessary. I’d recommend an annual review to stay on top of your target audience and how their preferences evolve.

How to Find Interviewees for Researching Buyer Personas

One of the most critical steps to establishing your buyer persona(s) is finding people to speak with to understand who your buyer persona is.

But how do you find these interviewees? There are a few sources I recommend tapping into.

1. Use your current customers.

Your existing customer base is the perfect place to start your interviews. They’ve already purchased and engaged with your company and exemplify your target persona(s).

Don’t just talk to people who love your product and want to spend an hour gushing about you (as good as that feels). Customers who are unhappy with your product will show other patterns that will help you form a solid understanding of your personas.

For example, you might find that some of your less happy customers have bigger teams and need greater collaboration functionality from your product. Or, maybe they find your product too technical and difficult to use. In both cases, you learn something about your product and what your customers’ challenges are.

Another benefit to current customers is that you don’t always need incentives (e.g., gift cards) because they like being heard. Interviewing gives them a chance to tell you about their challenges and what they think of your product. Your customers can then have an impact on the products they use.

Involving them in interviews can also deepen their loyalty to your company. When you reach out, always be clear that your goal is to get their feedback and that you highly value it.

2. Use your prospects.

You can also interview people who have not purchased your product and know little about your brand. Your prospects and leads are great options because you already have their contact information.

I recommend using the information you do have about them (i.e., anything you’ve collected through lead gen forms or website analytics) to figure out who fits your persona.

Tools like Enlyft can help you create custom buyer persona profiles and match your prospects to them to make it easier to find the people you need to talk to.

3. Use your referrals.

Your existing network (coworkers, existing customers, social media contacts, etc.) is a great resource for finding people you’d like to interview and getting an introduction.

You’ll likely get some high-quality interviews with this method, but volume can be lower. Referrals are especially beneficial if you’re heading into new markets or starting fresh without leads or customers.

If you don’t know where to start, I suggest searching on LinkedIn for people who may fit into your target personas and seeing who you share connections with, and reaching out to them for introductions.

4. Use third-party networks.

Third-party networks can help you recruit interviewees completely removed from your company. For example, UserTesting.com lets you run remote user testing. You just have less control over the sessions you run.

Now, let’s go over some tips for recruiting interviewees once you find them.

Tips for Recruiting Buyer Persona Interviewees

As you reach out to potential buyer persona interviewees, here are my tips for improving response rates and running smooth interviews.

• Decide how many people you need to speak to. I wish I could give a set answer, but the number of people you need to interview for a well-rounded persona will vary. I recommend starting with at least three to five for each persona you create and make sure it’s a mix of customers, prospects, and people who don’t know your company. If you reach a point where you can predict what an interviewee is about to stay, you probably have a good enough sample and can call it.
• Create your questions beforehand. After the small talk, you’ll jump into your questions. You want to have your persona interview questions ironed out ahead of time for a seamless interview process; otherwise, you risk looking disorganized and losing attention.
• Use incentives. Incentives give people a reason to participate, especially those who don’t have a relationship with you. A simple gift card is an easy option.
• Make it clear that it isn’t a sales call. This is especially important when dealing with non-customers who are weary of getting stuck on a sales call. Explain that you’re researching and want to learn from them, not sell to them.
• Make it easy to say yes. Take care of everything for your interviewees so they only have to say yes. Suggest times, and be flexible so they can pick what works best for them.

Buyer Persona Examples

I’ll share some examples of completed buyer personas so you can get a better understanding of what they look like.

B2B Buyer Persona Example

The image below is a B2B buyer persona for someone who works in HR. The persona paints a clear picture of the target customer’s struggles and how the business can best meet those needs.

In this case, HR recruiting tools streamline processes, make recruiting easier, and help HR expertly manage their overall job duties.

B2C Buyer Persona Example

The image below is a B2C buyer persona for a music streaming service.

Based on this persona, a streaming service would want to ensure that it has a user-friendly mobile app, sends new music notifications, and makes it easy for users to discover new music related to their interests and share content with friends.

Create Your Buyer Personas

Creating buyer personas helps you understand your target customers on a deeper level and ensures everyone on your team knows how to best target, support, and work with your customers.

When you use your personas to guide decisions, I don’t doubt that you’ll see improvement in your reach, boost your conversions, and increase customer loyalty.

Editor's note: This post was originally published in May 2015 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

via Perfecte news Non connection