When it comes to marketing, I've always been confused about the 'who'.
Conventional internet wisdom says you should target a tight niche. But the reality for most successful products is that they cater to more than one type of person. Think Canva, or Uber, or Freshdesk, or Basecamp...do any of these market to a specific niche?
The jobs-to-be-done philosophy bridged the gap for a while. Don't sell hammers to a specific demographic, focus on people who need a hole in their wall. Forget about the who. Focus on the job they want done instead. Wonderful stuff.
But JTBD has it's limits. Practically speaking, 'holes in walls' is not an interest I can target with an Ad campaign. And, maybe the hole was just a means to a picture on the wall. Maybe pictures are a means to a beautiful home. What level of abstraction am I supposed to focus on?
This week, Adele Revella's book clarified that Personas are not a bunch of imaginary people you think you're selling to. A good buyer persona is a shorthand for referring to everything you've learned about your customers.
Ask your customers to take you back to when they first realized they needed a solution (basically a JTBD interview), and trace out the buyer journey. Then, aggregate the insights into a single fictitious person that's easy to think about and refer to.
Useful personas have five kinds of insights:
- What prompted them to start looking for a solution.
- What a good solution means to them.
- Barriers affecting their choices.
- How they find and evaluate options.
- Criteria for their final choice.
This is handy stuff. After 5-6 customer interviews, keeping all the insights front of mind has been a hassle.
So, I pored over a few past customer interviews and managed to use ChatGPT to pull these insights out. Then, I combined all the insights into one composite Persona called Alex:
Conventional internet wisdom says you should target a tight niche. But the reality for most successful products is that they cater to more than one type of person. Think Canva, or Uber, or Freshdesk, or Basecamp...do any of these market to a specific niche?
The jobs-to-be-done philosophy bridged the gap for a while. Don't sell hammers to a specific demographic, focus on people who need a hole in their wall. Forget about the who. Focus on the job they want done instead. Wonderful stuff.
But JTBD has it's limits. Practically speaking, 'holes in walls' is not an interest I can target with an Ad campaign. And, maybe the hole was just a means to a picture on the wall. Maybe pictures are a means to a beautiful home. What level of abstraction am I supposed to focus on?
This week, Adele Revella's book clarified that Personas are not a bunch of imaginary people you think you're selling to. A good buyer persona is a shorthand for referring to everything you've learned about your customers.
Ask your customers to take you back to when they first realized they needed a solution (basically a JTBD interview), and trace out the buyer journey. Then, aggregate the insights into a single fictitious person that's easy to think about and refer to.
Useful personas have five kinds of insights:
- What prompted them to start looking for a solution.
- What a good solution means to them.
- Barriers affecting their choices.
- How they find and evaluate options.
- Criteria for their final choice.
This is handy stuff. After 5-6 customer interviews, keeping all the insights front of mind has been a hassle.
So, I pored over a few past customer interviews and managed to use ChatGPT to pull these insights out. Then, I combined all the insights into one composite Persona called Alex:
Alex is a discerning and tech-savvy professional, actively searching for solutions to help streamline his consulting business.
The reason Alex started looking for a solution is because he realized that a lot of his competitors have started to use generative AI to gain an edge with handling and processing client requests, creating content and improving general productivity.
A good automation solution for Alex means that he won't get left behind in the new competitive landscape. In addition to a competitive edge, Alex expects the ideal automation tool will automate a lot of the boring tasks and free him up to do more important and enjoyable work.
Alex is worried about the potential learning curve around all these new AI tools and foresees integration barriers with his existing systems and processes. Another reservations Alex has from past experience with using new tools is privacy. As a freelance contractor, Alex doesn't want to expose his 'secret sauce' and accidentally give away trade secrets that would give his competitors and edge.
Alex doesn't know exactly what kind of tool he is looking for, he isn't sure what's available yet. He is actively exploring and evaluation different options at the moment, testing product capabilities, attending demos, and trying to learn more about tools in the space.
Some specific capabilities Alex is looking for when he's trying out different options includes being able to efficiently handle long prompts, support third-party integrations, plenty of customization options, and the ability produce nuanced work that is aligned with his distinct brand voice.
I can't share my prompt thread directly because I don't have permission to share the actual customer conversations. I can share the prompts I used, though:
What insights can be gleaned from the conversation below?
The conversation is a product demo, where I am showing a customer how to use our product.
Below are the 5 types of insights I want you to look for. Please use quotes to reference which bit of the transcript you are using to justify an insight.
Priority Initiative:
The Priority Initiative insight explains the most compelling reason that buyers decide to invest in a solution similar to the one your organization offers , and why others are content with the status quo . Because this insight describes in detail the personal or organizational circumstances that cause buyers to allocate their time , budget , or political capital to purchase a solution like yours , you know when buyers are receptive to hearing from you and which personas are triggering the decision to make this investment. Marketers use this insight to define , defend , and execute strategies that resonate with buyers at the earliest stages in their decision .
Success Factors:
The Success Factors insight describes the operational or personal results that your buyer persona expects from purchasing a solution like yours. Success Factors resemble benefits , but this insight eliminates the need to guess at or reverse-engineer your messaging based on your solution's capabilities . For example , where you might be emphasizing your solution's power to cut costs , this insight might tell you that your buyer is more concerned about reducing business risks . Or you might learn that your consumer buyer is motivated by a desire to control something specific about his or her environment . Through this insight , you would know exactly which risks are most worrisome and how your buyers describe the rewards of achieving control .
Perceived Barriers:
| We often refer to Perceived Barriers as the “ bad news ” insight because it tells you what prevents buyers from considering your solution — as well as why some believe that your competitors have a better approach . The barrier may reflect internal resistance from another decision maker or an unfortunate prior experience with similar solutions . It could be a negative perception of your product or company , accurate or not . When you know where the barriers are and who's behind them , you know what you need to do to reassure your buyer that your company or solution will help achieve their Priority Initiative and Success Factors.
Buyer's Journey:
This insight reveals the behind - the - scenes story about the work your buyers do to evaluate options , eliminate contenders , and settle on their final choice . Through this insight , you will know which of several influencers is involved at each phase of the decision , what they did to arrive at their conclusions , and how much influence each of them has over the decision . You will use the Buyer's Journey insight to align your sales and marketing activities to target the most influential buyers at each phase of the decision , through resources that help them see your approach as a perfect fit for their needs .
Decision Criteria:
Through Decision Criteria , you will learn about the specific attributes of your product , service , or solution that buyers evaluate as they compare alternative approaches . Decision Criteria insights frequently surprise marketers by revealing that buyers are not satisfied with benefits - oriented marketing materials , and that companies that communicate facts are more likely to gain their buyers ' trust . You may even learn that your newest or most distinctive capabilities have the least impact on their decision .
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{{insert customer interview transcript}}
I used GPT-4 for this and had to cut a transcript into chunks because of token limitations. I'd just re-run the prompt on each chunk of the transcript and then merge all the insights together at the end.
How many Persona do I need?
The only question I had left was how many marketing funnels I need build.
Should I run an ad campaign for every different type of person our product could appeal to? Do I need to create a separate landing page for lawyers, another for NGOs, and a third for e-commerce store owners if I think our product will help all three?
Adele clarified that if lawyers, NGOs, and e-commerce store owners all have the same problem, want the same thing, and have the same expectations, then they're really just one composite buyer persona. So one marketing funnel. One ad campaign.
That said, sometimes insights will diverge. The example Adele used was from the construction tool company Caterpillar. It was clear they had large construction project contact buyers and purchases from small homeowners. These two types of customers had completely separate buyer journeys with different needs and expectations. This warranted setting up two completely different marketing funnels so that they could market to these two types of buyer personas differently.
However, a more important question is how many different types of buyers do you have the time and resources to market to? If you don't have the time and resources to market to more than one type of person (which we don't) then the question is pointless.
Pick the one we're most valuable to and run with it.
Till next week.
Josh