What Reps Need to Know About Personas

Never underestimate the need to understand the persona that you are targeting during your outbound prospecting calls. When you are cold calling, you are calling someone who is not expecting your call, and probably has a very busy schedule. Ultimately, if the lead picks up your call, you have a very small window of time to convince this person that you understand his/her goals, responsibilities, and pain points.

Here is an example of a Buyer’s Persona, the Pain Points, and How a Company Solves the Pain:

• Title: CEO, CMO, VP of Marketing
• Influencers: Other franchise CEOs/franchise consultants/ad agencies
• Goal: Grow franchise quickly through building strong brand and expanding to new markets
• Relevant Areas of Concerns/Responsibilities
  • Brand development and management
  • Franchise marketing
  • Affiliate marketing
  • Affiliate marketing plan, customization, localization, demand generation, local marketing support team

Additional Examples of Pain Points

• Inefficient local marketing which affects affiliates’ profits and growth, and affects franchisor’s bottom line
  • Manifestation:  Our affiliates are not marketing themselves locally as well as we want them to
  • Benefits:  Company X offers media buyer rates, reduced production costs, and more effective local marketing
• Franchisor has difficulty replicating its original business model and attracting franchisees
  • Manifestation:  Marketing production costs are too high and they are hurting our affiliates’ businesses
  • Benefits:  Company X offers a competitive edge to the franchisor’s business model and makes the franchise more attractive to potential franchisees

Additional resources:

Reconciling Market Segments and Personas The Cooper Journal

Buyers persona segmentation Buyer Persona Insights

Introduction to Personas Step Two Designs

The Power of Persona, Pragmatic Marketing

Next week, I’ll share some insights on successful outcomes of outbound prospecting.

Photo by: Michelle Carl