State Of Buyer Personas 2016 Survey
This has been an eventful year. We are seeing continued growth in the adoption of buyer personas as a means for understanding buyers and customers. At the same time, the growth is fraught with the perils of buyer personas being misunderstood, mislabeled, and serving as a cover for basic buyer profiling.
Each year, since originating the concept of buyer personas in 2001-2002, I have reflected and offered a perspective on the state of buyer personas. As in last year, I wish to incorporate the use of a survey to offer a comprehensive view of the state of buyer personas. This is where I need your help. I am looking for marketing and sales leaders in business organizations who have thought about or implemented buyer persona development.
In 2015, we have seen greater usage and the introduction of cloud-based platforms designed to automate buyer persona management. Yet, I am concerned that the true goal-directed and qualitative research essentials of buyer personas are being missed by CMOs, CSOs, and their teams. There has been much content propagated on buyer personas. From advice on how to do interviews to what elements to include in buyer persona descriptions. Much of which is either severely inaccurate or only partly right.
On a positive note, I have worked with some amazing organizations this year. Teams who are finding new successful marketing and sales strategies as a result of focusing on goal-directed buyer persona development. Yielding tremendous previously uncovered buyer insights, which are leading to successful marketing and sales efforts. Perhaps of greater importance is their customers and buyers are engaged and benefitting immensely from renewed initiatives to be relevant to the goals of buyers.
My hope is the survey will yield informative insights and offer a pathway on how to properly assess and utilize buyer persona development. In the end, what we hope for is the continued evolution in how organizations can achieve deep customer understanding.
Take The State Of Buyer Persona 2016 Survey
May I get your help? If you are a marketing or sales leader, please contribute by taking the survey – it will be appreciated!
It will be up for a few weeks and my goal is to share the results in January. Please take a brief ten minutes to take the survey here:
The State Of Buyer Personas 2016
Or you can take it right now below: