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[Webinar] How Tech Companies Leverage Personas and Segmentation
The document discusses how tech companies can effectively use personas and segmentation to enhance marketing strategies and drive growth. It emphasizes the importance of understanding buyer behavior and tailoring marketing efforts to meet specific audience needs through persona development, data mapping, and content segmentation. By applying these strategies, companies can create more personalized and impactful marketing programs that increase engagement and conversions.
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[Webinar] How Tech Companies Leverage Personas and Segmentation
- 1. How Tech CompaniesCan Leverage Personas and Segmentation Hally Pinaud Principal Segment Marketing Manager Marketo @hallypino Vyoma Kapur Sr. Manager, Marketing Marketo @vioma
- 2. #mktgnation | @hallypino| @vioma • This webinar is being recorded! Slides and recording will be sent to you after the webinar concludes. • Have a question? Use the chat box and I’ll get to your questions after the webinar. • Posting to social? Use our hashtag - #mktgnation Housekeeping
- 3. Why Personas &Segmentation Matter Hint: tech business objectives depend on getting personal.
- 4. Page 4© 2014Marketo, Inc. Source: Accenture 94% of buyers research online before contacting sales. In complex sales, you have to understand pain and trusted sources to educate researchers in a variety of roles.
- 5. Page 5© 2014Marketo, Inc. 57% of tech companies say reaching new customer segments is their #1 growth initiative. To engage a new segment, you have to meet them on their terms. Reference: CompTIA
- 6. Page 6© 2014Marketo, Inc. Source: Marketing Metrics: The Manager's Guide to Measuring Marketing Performance (3rd Edition) Current customers are 50% easier to convert. You must understand how to compel specific buyers with x-sell and upsell offers.
- 7. Page 7© 2014Marketo, Inc. 65% of technology companies use some marketing automation. Source: SiriusDecisions How you engage makes your strategy is more impactful than your competition’s.
- 8. #mktgnation | @hallypino| @vioma Product- centric Customer- centric Rethinking How We Market Technology Pushes Volume Pulls with Value Customer-centric organizations are 60% more profitable. (Deloitte)
- 9. Here’s Where toStart! 3 Steps: to Understand and Engage Tech Buyers DEVELOP YOUR PERSONAS CONNECT TO SEGMENTATION APPLY TO PROGRAMS
- 10. Step 1: to Understandand Engage Tech Buyers DEVELOP YOUR PERSONAS CONNECT TO SEGMENTATION APPLY TO PROGRAMS
- 11. #mktgnation | @hallypino| @vioma Wait, What’s a Persona? “A persona is a fictional character created as a proxy for a target audience. These audience archetypes commonly include illustrative pictures and fictional names that make them tangible to digital designers and marketers. Personas identify similar patterns of behavior that result in commonly held goals.”
- 12. #mktgnation | @hallypino| @vioma Identify Your Personas Role & “Need to Knows” Product alignment Goals / Drivers Challenges / Pain Sources of Information Tech Footprint / Comfort Questions + Objections Buyer / Decision Maker User / Influencer Complex: Multiple personas may exist in complex sales Diverse: Personas can differ across industries Changing: Keep personas up-to-date!
- 13. Buyer Persona: Directorof College Recruiting Background: Decision maker Large Public University Employee ~15 Employees Busy, frequent traveler Technology footprint: Goals: • Maximize relations with key hiring orgs • Increase % of students hired YOY • Ensure team is set up to succeed Common Objections: • “We have everything we need” • Budget • “You don’t work with schools like us” Pain Points: • Engaging the students early & often • Getting top applicants to accept offers • Budget challenges, resource “bang for buck” Information Sources: • Recruiting Conferences, Specialized Groups • LinkedIn (especially industry peers) • Business media (WSJ, Forbes, etc.) Leads College Career Center at D1 Research University Here’s a real example
- 14. #mktgnation | @hallypino| @vioma Primary Data Sources Customer Databases Marketing Databases Surveys Interviews Customers + Prospects Customer- facing team Other Resources Analyst reports Industry media How to Research Your Personas
- 15. #mktgnation | @hallypino| @vioma Primary Data Sources Customer Databases Marketing Databases Surveys Interviews Customers + Prospects Customer- facing team Other Resources Analyst reports Industry media How to Research Your Personas FAQ: How do you recruit for persona interviews?
- 16. #mktgnation | @hallypino| @vioma DO • Actually interview people! • Start with what makes sense • Share x-functionally DON’T • Focus on “cutesy” details • Set and forget • Forget the post-purchase Dos and Don’ts of Personas
- 17. Step 2: to Understandand Engage Tech Buyers DEVELOP YOUR PERSONAS CONNECT TO SEGMENTATION APPLY TO PROGRAMS
- 18. #mktgnation | @hallypino| @vioma Map Personas to Your Database • Role in purchase • Function • Industry • Company size • Geography • Relationship • Tech stack • Job title • Job title/dept. • SIC code • Company name • Company name • CRM data • Inferred data • Specialist vs. VP • Finance vs. Sales • Tech vs. Pharma • SB vs. Enterprise • USA vs. Canada • Customer vs. Prospect • Competitive vs. partner ATTRIBUTES DATA EXAMPLES
- 19. #mktgnation | @hallypino| @vioma Every form completion asks for incremental information Use Progressive Profiling Benefits Gain deeper insight into personas Help sales tailor approach to prospects Shorter forms (3-5 fields) result in higher conversion rates Better customer experience
- 20. #mktgnation | @hallypino| @vioma Use Progressive Profiling Step 1: Ebook download Step 2: Event Registration Step 3: Demo request
- 21. #mktgnation | @hallypino| @vioma Firmographic data supplied by Dun & Bradstreet Enrichment for leads entered into CRM system Identifies technologies used by companies Sources new names based on buyer profile Removes and manages duplicate data Consider Data Vendors for Enrichment
- 22. #mktgnation | @hallypino| @vioma Segment Content Based on Pain Points Manual tasks Inefficiencies Lack of resources PERSONA CHALLENGES CONTENT Cheat sheet: 10 Tips on How to Automate Processes and Get Executive Buy-In Poor ROI Decreasing budget Organizational changes White paper: Research Study on Driving Revenue Through Effective Change Management InfluencerBuyer
- 23. Step 3: to Understandand Engage Tech Buyers DEVELOP YOUR PERSONAS CONNECT TO SEGMENTATION APPLY TO PROGRAMS
- 24. #mktgnation | @hallypino| @vioma • Demographic • Firmographic: industry, named account, company size, products used etc. • Role/function: seniority, division, department etc. • Behavioral • Engagement: program interaction, content consumed etc. Score Personas Based on Key Attributes
- 25. #mktgnation | @hallypino| @vioma Setting up the right segmentations & enabling dynamic content allows for personalization at scale Leverage Dynamic Content
- 26. #mktgnation | @hallypino| @vioma Engagement Programs Priority 1 C-Level ENT Verticals Higher Ed Healthcare Sports Financial Services Manufacturing C-Level SMB Competitors Competitor 1 Competitor 2 Competitor 3 B2B MA Non Specific B2C ESP Full Function B2C ESP Limited Function Priority 2 ENT B2C Pending Early Mid Late ENT B2B Pending Early Mid Late SMB B2C Pending Early Mid Late SMB B2B Pending Early Mid Late Create Nurture Tracks For Top Segments
- 27. #mktgnation | @hallypino| @vioma Increase relevance Drive engagement Generate conversions Try Intent-Based Content Syndication Intent to buy • Overlay demographic information with surge data • Finds your personas on the web • Identifies which target personas are actively researching your products • Signals when and what they want to hear from you
- 28. #mktgnation | @hallypino| @vioma • Classic bottom-funnel tactic in B2B enterprise SaaS • Pre-: push trial to user segments based on activity & buying stage • During: provide guidance thru nurture & education • Post-: trigger sales follow up with persona-specific approach Tailor Free Trial Strategy to Segments • Version One case study: • Shifting to enterprise required agility & scalability • Created dynamic landing pages with multiple forms for trial validation • Developed trial flows based on segment/persona
- 29. #mktgnation | @hallypino| @vioma Recap Persona development is critical in understanding your audience Define personas with meaningful attributes and use multiple data sources Map attributes to your database and create segmentations Apply personas and segmentations to your marketing programs
- 30.
Editor's Notes
- #3 And with that let’s get going!
- #5 Your customers have moved online, or at least your future customers have. Are your online channels and your agent communications delivering a consistent and compelling experience – when taken as a whole? --------------------------------------- Extended talk track: An omnichannel (customer centric ) sales and distribution model and business strategy. Customers increasingly expect their insurers to have robust online and mobile channels, with technology integrated seamlessly into activities such as call center conversations. Digital tools, such as tablets used to issue a policy through a completely digital process, will also augment the agents’ toolkit. Young online companies like SureNow and Protect Your Bubble have a head start in this regard, often targeting digitally savvy customers with low-cost insurance products. Incumbants are responding, like Dutch insurer Aegon has launched Kroodle, a paperless insurance company, designed mainly for mobile users who purchase via Facebook.
- #6 Today’s fierce battle for new customers in is largely won by price, yet price-sensitive buyers are more prone to switching later for a lower-priced offer. Customers want policies tailored to their requirements and to be only paying for what they need Even price-sensitive customers, though, can be converted to loyal promoters through differentiated products and standout service. Bain’s research shows that loyalty leaders in most countries, such as USAA & Progressive in the US, Liverpool Victoria in the UK and Apia in Australia, excel on both price and service dimensions. It comes down to delivering a better product, with better service at a better price – but customer experience overall is becoming the key differentiator. So, it’s important to take a look at your marketing programs, and your overall customer experience and ask yourself some key questions… [PwC found that 50% of consumers will provide their insurer with additional personal information to enable them to seek the best deal for relevant services on their behalf] (For the life sector, price matters less than investment returns, except for standardized products like term life, because there’s less price transparency.)
- #7 Your customers have moved online, or at least your future customers have. Are your online channels and your agent communications delivering a consistent and compelling experience – when taken as a whole? --------------------------------------- Extended talk track: An omnichannel (customer centric ) sales and distribution model and business strategy. Customers increasingly expect their insurers to have robust online and mobile channels, with technology integrated seamlessly into activities such as call center conversations. Digital tools, such as tablets used to issue a policy through a completely digital process, will also augment the agents’ toolkit. Young online companies like SureNow and Protect Your Bubble have a head start in this regard, often targeting digitally savvy customers with low-cost insurance products. Incumbants are responding, like Dutch insurer Aegon has launched Kroodle, a paperless insurance company, designed mainly for mobile users who purchase via Facebook.
- #8 What kind of service are you providing to your customers after they sign up and between renewals? While it used to be sufficient to focus on brand recognition, today you need to treat your customers like individuals and deliver personalized service. If you are providing real value through your content and programs, you will be in the minority, and therefore stand out from your competition.
- #18 Thank you Hally! Once you have completed your persona development, The next step is to use them to define your segmentation.
- #19 Here are typical attributes B2B tech companies use, in the first column. Hally covered many of these in her section Idea is to make them actionable and map to the data u have One important attribute for many tech cos is role in purchase process- decision maker or influencer. The data that can help you distinguish lies in the job title. You may want to determine the threshold above which they’ll likely be decision makers, below most likely influencers- e.g. specialist as the practioners, VP as the buyer Function is also something that can be inferred from job title- Director of marketing, is in marketing dept. and sometimes you also have function as its own field. Industry- often rely on a metric called SIC code, universal system for classifying industries Company size, Geo- deduced from company name. Relationship- customer, partner, prospect? CRM data that has been updated by your sales ops team Tech stack interesting variable- chances are you have competing tech products, inferred data- more on that shortly.
- #20 You may be thinking that you don’t have a lot of this information, or the information you have isn’t very accurate. So what can you do to enrich your data? One way is Progressive profiling is common for tech cos to get more information directly from the horses mouth. Basically a form appeas every time a person comes back to your website. Lots of benefits of this approach- deeper insight that you may not be able to get otherwise. With this info, sales can tailor their approach Shorter the form the better, for higher conversion rates Of course a better customer experience
- #21 And this is what it looks like. The very first time your persona comes to ur site- ask them basic info to capture them as leads in your database Second time, say they are registering for an event- you get to welcome them back and ask more info, e.g. their address and function, which will help you do geo segmentation 3rd time: if they’re requesting a demo, you can ask them some qualifying qns at that point.
- #22 Of course, no such thing as too much data, or too big of a database. At Marketo, we use a bunch of different data enrichment technologies to augment and manage the leads and contact data in our system From ReachForce, which we use to add firmographic data from Dun&Bradstreet, to Leadspace for finding new names based on buyer profile Datanyze is a great tool that which has a sophisticated web crawler to determine the technologies used by companies. We use this to segment personas based on competitive or partner technologies being used Tech stack Competitive techs Partner techs (CRM) Greenfield/whitespace
- #23 Now, beyond just segmentation based on who they are, also look at what content they are browsing. This is something to do in your research phase as Hally mentioned. What you want to do is take an extra step and classify content based on personas and hence pain points So looking at the 2 most common personas- the influencer/practitioner has different challenges from the buyer, or decision maker. The influencer may be more concerned with inefficiencies, manual tasks, lack of resources, so a simple cheat sheet on how to automate processes and get exec buy in The buyer may be more interested in ROI, budget or org changes, so a well researched white paper on driving revenue could be mapped to her. Very helpful exercise in promoting and scoring content differently to different personas Market/score differently
- #24 And now, once you have your segments built out, how can you apply that to programs? This is your Step 3.
- #25 And it starts with scoring before you plan programs. Crucial to consider both demographic and behavioral score- the demographic attributes split into 2 broad categories- firmographic and those that aligned with role and function Behavioral segmentation has to do with how your personas are engaging with your program. At Marketo robust scoring methodology based on the investment someone has to put into engaging with a program (Y axis) and the stage (X axis) So if someone attends a field event where we have a lot of late stage content like demos, we give that persona the higherst behavior score of 11
- #26 One thing can easily be done in the beginning stages is to set them up in your marketing automation system With this, you can easily create dynamic content- one email that can speak to multiple segments at the same time in a relevant way Instantly allows for personalization at scale
- #27 Going down the funnel to nurture programs We have nurture tracks for our main segments- starts with the C level ENT track- specifically to reach decision makers in big accounts We then take people thru vertical nuture programs that focus on industry messaging 6-7 Competitive nuture programs For the prioriy 2 nurtures, we segment by company size (ENT/SMB), use case (B2B or B2C) and biying stage (early, mid late) Educational- complicated product, lots of stakeholders. Behavior based, that is based on pain points
- #28 A great thing that has emerged in the last few yrs is intent based content syndication This allows you to find personas not just based on demographic info, but behavior too Layer intent data on top of things like title and company name- Looks for an increase in research on ur product Signals when and what they want to hear This enables u to increase relevance, u drive more engagement and ultimately generate more conversions
- #29 For tech companies, classic tactic is to offer free trials, most often thru a website. foot in door Trials can b very generic. How can u personalize Answer lies in following a holisitc approach tailored to each user persona. Before the trial-. This comms should be based on their activity- how they are interacting with ur content- as well as buying stage During the trial, it could be overwhelming for users to use a product for the first time, speaking from experience Really need to guide along, point them to features they will find most valuable Post trial, this is when you need to trigger sales followup to make them into paying customers. How can ur sales team be enabled to anticipate counter the most common objections? Trained on persona and what they care about Version one, a Project Management solution Moving to enterprise, many tech cos go thru Needed agilty and scalbility Were able to both increase MQLs and marketing contribution to pipeline Guide them along, foot in the door.
- #30 Alright, before we wrap up, a quick recap: Persona development is critical for tech cos, esp if u have complex products and sales cycles Define personas with meaningful attributes and use a variety of data sources Map attributes to ur database and create segments Finally, apply personas and segments to ur scoring and programs
- #31 And that concludes our webinar! Thank you all so much for joining. We hope you found this useful. As we mentioned, the slides and recording will be sent to you shortly. Seeing a number of qns come in, so we have some time for a couple. Fist qn How many personas should you have? How can we determine if we are segmenting enough or if we are over-segmenting our database? Great qn- there’s a fine line between being to generic and too granular. Ultimately I think it boils down to numbers. Do you have enough people in your database to warrant an entire segment? Because If you don’t have a critical mass, your programs may not move the needle. On the other hand, if you’re going too broad, you may be compromising on relevance and personalization. So it’s a balancing act. You mentioned sharing personas with Sales – how do you do that?