The prac­tice of per­sona cre­ation is not new, although the behav­iours and ways your audi­ence engages with your brand are. This is a dynamic shift in the way that you under­stand an influ­encer, or buyer of your prod­ucts.  Today, the con­sumer is in the driver’s seat, so in order to be con­sid­ered for pur­chase you must first be found and then be relevant.

>Facil­i­tate Your Audience’s Nat­ural Behaviour

It is impor­tant to real­ize that tech­nol­ogy does not change people’s behav­iour, it enables it.  For exam­ple, word of mouth is still a major influ­encer in a pur­chase deci­sion, but this does not just hap­pen at the water cooler or din­ner table any­more.  Today, plat­forms like Bazaar Voice and Twit­ter have changed the way WOM inserts itself into a buy­ing deci­sion. Remem­ber the last time you where look­ing at a new TV or tablet on BestBuy.com, and the rat­ing of some­one you have never met actu­ally make you think twice about the brand you where think­ing about pur­chas­ing – or it in fact val­i­dated your orig­i­nal thoughts which made you feel like you were mak­ing the right decision.

As a mod­ern mar­keter or sales exec­u­tive, you need to first under­stand how peo­ple buy, then ask your­self it you are actu­ally help­ing to facil­i­tate what your audi­ence is nat­u­rally try­ing to do.  Or are you miss­ing key online pieces that make it harder to buy from you?  Per­haps a new com­peti­tor is doing a bet­ter job than you are.

>Break­ing News: Mar­ket­ing Takes Sales For Lunch

MarketingSherpa’s study also showed what resources com­pa­nies are using to gain insight when build­ing a dig­i­tal per­sona. As you can see, the peo­ple who have the most touch points with the end users and buy­ers are the most valu­able sources of infor­ma­tion. There is also a blend of qual­i­ta­tive and quan­ti­ta­tive analy­sis that helps val­i­date the infor­ma­tion. Mar­ket­ing and sales are no longer sep­a­rate dis­ci­plines – there is inter­play between both much deeper into a sales cycle than ever before.



>Dig­i­tal Hand Holding

In going through the cathar­tic process of under­stand­ing how your audi­ence buys and the role online plays in this process, it is impor­tant to also under­stand how your audi­ence deals with dig­i­tal.  In a recent book by Gord Hotchkiss his research team looked into how busi­ness buys from busi­ness in a dig­i­tal mar­ket­place.  Part of this process was iden­ti­fy­ing the dif­fer­ences between a Dig­i­tal Immi­grant (some­one over 30, who had to adapt to dig­i­tal) verses a Dig­i­tal Native (some­one under 30 who grew up in a dig­i­tal world).  Map­ping your audience’s behav­iours, dig­i­tal pref­er­ences, and buy­ing process will enable you to start build­ing your own mod­ern dig­i­tal per­sonae – Mak­ing it eas­ier for your audi­ence to buy from you.


Biography / Resume : Chris has extensive experience and insight into digital marketing, lead generation, channel strategy, and B2B marketing. At Mediative, he has been the lead with key accounts including Allstate Insurance, 3M, American Red Cross, Toys R Us and Deustche Telekom. He leverages Mediative’s knowledge of user behaviour to present both concepts and solutions that will drive clients on-line marketing forward. Chris is a contributor to the book The BuyerSphere Project – How Business Buys From Business in a Digital Marketplace. He is also a speaker with the Google Engage project, various industry and client events.