The digital agency Marketade conducted internal surveys and discussions to develop "lean personas" of their ideal clients in order to target their UX project sales efforts more effectively. They created 7 potential client profiles based on team members' responses. The profiles of Chase and Alex were rated highest. Marketade then launched a new homepage and AdWords campaign targeted towards personas like Chase and Alex, who work for large companies and need in-depth UX research and strategy rather than marketing services. They recognize the personas are initial assumptions based on internal views and plan to validate and improve them through usability tests and user interviews.

1. Lean Personas for Marketade:
A Team Sport Approach
November 7, 2017

2. We’re a 7-person digital agency in the U.S. Earlier this year, we
decided to increase sales efforts with a focus on UX projects.
We needed to get a better handle on what types of companies
— and people within those companies — to target. Quickly.
As a first step, we decided to use 2 rounds of internal surveys
plus some discussion to 1) get what was in people’s heads
down on paper, and 2) reach some initial consensus on the
most promising targets. Here’s what we did and learned.
The Background

3. All 7 Marketade team members answered a series of questions
about their ideal next client for Marketade.

4. John took a subset of each person’s responses and created 7
customer profiles.

5. All 7 Marketade team members then participated in a follow-up
survey focused on the profiles, followed by a discussion.

6. In the final rankings, Chase came out on top, followed by Alex.

7. The final rankings differed some from the initial profile ratings,
but the same 2 profiles came out on top in both.

8. Here is Chase’s profile.

9. Here is Alex’s profile.

10. Here’s what people liked most about Chase:

11. Here’s what people liked most about Alex:

12. As a team, we briefly discussed what made the top profiles
differ from other profiles and from most of our current clients:
● Large company, ~ 5,000 employees
● Stakeholder focused on complex products or systems
● Stakeholder needs in-depth UX research and strategy
● Little or no need for the marketing services we’ve historically
provided (e.g. SEO)
● UX work is more focused on the usability of products /
systems / software; little or no focus on the UX or lead
generation of marketing sites

13. Some other overall findings from the first survey …
4 of 7 people imagined their ideal client in Health Care.

14. Lots of interest in Education and Government as well ...

15. 3 of 7 people imagined their ideal client at a 1,000-10,000
employee company. In discussion, we shared concerns about
the RFP and procurement process of larger companies, and had
some consensus around a sweet spot closer to 1,000-person
companies.

16. Top service needs are user research, content strategy, and
UX/visual design.

17. Finally, here are the other 5 customer profiles ...

22. With these lean personas in place, we quickly launched a
new version of our homepage — along with a national
AdWords campaign — to target people like Chase and Alex.
We’re working on an MVP of a new, expanded website.
Once that’s live, we’ll conduct some usability tests and user
interviews to in/validate and improve our initial personas.
Since they were based largely on internal assumptions, we
know there’s plenty of room to improve our personas. Yet
they were enough to get us moving in the right direction.
Applications & Next Steps

23. Interested in seeing the full list of survey questions
we used?
Have other questions?
Send @marketade a message on Twitter. Or post a
question on SlideShare.
Questions?