These are the slides for my talk at MarketingProfs 2014 B2B Marketing Forum in Boston. It contains some pretty pictures and checklists for creating personas and tone of voice guidelines.
14. What is a persona?
‘Semi-fictional
representations of your
ideal customer based on
real data and some select
educated speculation
about customer
demographics, behaviour
patterns, motivations and
goals’
(HubSpot definition)
26. Day in the life
• Where do they work?
• What do they do there?
• How do they spend their time?
• What do they like?
• Dislike?
27. Reading
• What do they read for pleasure?
• What do they read for business?
• What websites do they like?
• What blogs do they visit?
• Who do they follow on social media?
44. Audience
• Who are you writing for?
• Personas?
• Reading age
• Education
45. Voice
• For example:
• Ironic
• Cheeky
• Serious
• Earnest
• Jokey
• Formal
• Conversational
• Who speaks like this?
• What other companies use this voice?
46. Language
• Mandatory words?
• Forbidden words?
• Readability requirements?
• Style guide?
• British English? American English?
• For translation?
47. Viewpoint
• What is your attitude?
• What do you know?
• Why should people listen?
• Who has this attitude?
• Platform
• Permission
• Authority
Or how to attract, convert, close and delight your customers
Let me introduce myself as a marketing persona
Let’s see if I can build a profile of my audience in my head before I start
How many agency?
How many client side?
Why are you at this conference?
Why are you in this workshop?
The question you’re all asking yourself
This is the most important point.
I’m not interested in ‘personal transport solutions’ but I might like a new BMW
I’m not interested in ‘financial management solutions’ but I might want an outsourced bookkeeper
Articulate’s customers aren’t interested in copywriting for its own sake but they are interested in getting more visitors, leads, conversions
All writing is a conversation between two *people*.
Personas and TOVs are how you stop talking about your stuff in your words and start talking about their stuff in their words
Personas help you understand who you are talking to. TOVs help you understand who you are when you write.
What brands do we like? (Apple, Google, Virgin etc.)
What do the have in common? (Great products, clear brand personality)
Would you say they have a distinctive tone of voice?
Let’s look at a few examples
(sSource: http://www.forbes.com/powerful-brands/list/)
‘Woohoo! We’re so excited…’
Zappos does insane excitement about shoes
‘Loving every minute of it’
Apple does witty, hipster paradoxes
‘It’s not the usual Yada Yada’
Google does endlessly a/b tested approachability
Virgin does counter-culture and sex appeal
(Although I spent three hours on the phone with them this week. Calling from BA Concorde Lounge! HA!)
Plus sexy provocation and innuendo
Hard to forget
Hands up if you could get this kind of copy past your CMO?
Who has seen a persona?
Who has created one?
You may need three to six for your company. Too many is a problem. Too few is a problem.
Talked to Efrat last night – full engaged content marketing genius – but only had one persona.
Fair enough. But actually within that persona there were different use cases / product interests and that could tweak a master persona.
Even if you only have one, really getting right helps you talk to their issues.
http://academy.hubspot.com/examples/customer-examples/?Tag=Buyer+Persona
What elements do we see on this page?
http://academy.hubspot.com/examples/customer-examples/?Tag=Buyer+Persona
How have they written up this PO
What about this one?
This comes out of our HubSpot system and I like the way it’s integrated into the platform
You ask who is your customer? Personas answer that question.
They tell you about your customers’ innermost needs and problems.
They tell you how to engage with customers in an imaginative and emotional way as well as a logical way.
They ensure consistency across media, agencies and writers
They tell you what kinds of messages and writing your customers trust
They help you brief writers and agencies
These are abuses. Get a bad persona and you’ll get bad copy.
Also, if you don’t have an actual persona, you’ll have an unwritten, ad-hoc persona or multiple ones per writer
Letting product managers write them, you get product specs in human form ‘John needs inbound marketing content services’.
It’s not a market research exercise – it’s your IDEAL customer
Microsoft brief – ‘its for techies and senior management, in business and the public sector for SMBs and enterprise customers’ If you write for everyone you write for noone
Too generic and you won’t get any differentiation.
Even a little bit of bad data is better than no data at all
Make it clear it’s not a sales call
Respect people’s time
Make it easy to help
Generally sales people know customers better than product people – objections, pain points, they know people’s psychology
What have you done?
The question you’re all asking yourself
Get paper and pen or laptops out!
Write down these headings.
You can adjust this formula. It’s not written in stone. But it works for us.
ME: I’m going to try write a persona for this audience by asking you questions
I want YOU to write personas about YOUR ideal customer so you can take that away with you
Let’s get to know someone
Ask people for their names, job titles, education level
Write this up on the white board
Ask some questions – on your last day in the office, what did you spend most of your time doing – what was the modal task
If you want to be credible, it makes sense to know what they already find credible
What’s your favourite blog?
What’s your favourite magazine?
Who’s your favourite marketing opinionator?
What’s your biggest marketing problem?
Microsoft Word wizard – ‘Write my report’, ‘Write my novel’.
What product or service would make your life better?
This is part of our TOV
I like the viewpoint ‘the authority on inbound content marketing for techies’.
I like the relationship we describe as a ‘trusted advisor’
Well, I would. I wrote it.
So we’re going to write one
These are common elements in a TOV
Jot these down – I want YOU to create a TOV using these headlines.
We’re going to create one for a fictional content marketing agency – ‘The Moon Underwater’. The world’s best content marketing agency.
Again, your mileage may vary
Simpsons and The Sun
Ironic (Google)
Cheeky (Virgin)
Serious (HP)
Earnest (McKinsey)
Jokey (Ben & Jerry’s)
You know how movie people pitch movies – ‘Jaws in space’ (Alien) – you can use other brands as reference points.
Controlled vocabulary
Readability stats
Br / US english
‘Export’ English
Friendly
Didactic / instructional
Expert
Trend for a kind of ‘censor of morals’ view point (9 out or 10 people pay their taxes on time)
Or Seth Godin provocative life questions
What’s your permission/authority – this is really important. For example, Microsoft and SMB
Complete stranger
Very polite
Very informal
Downright rude
Trusted advisor
Friend
The fonz, your doctor, a schoolteacher, Saul Goodman
Grounded in reality – you can’t be a trusted advisor if you don’t give any advice.
This mural is in my street back in London
You’ll get better copy and better content if you do this. Even a provisional TOV and personas is better than none.
So now you know you can create a TOV and Persona in less than an hour
I give you permission to go do it yourself!
You have my permission to find your own voice – find your own purple cow. You don’t need to write ‘proper’ or ‘professional’
(I saw this one on the Southbank in London)
Keep revisiting your TOV and personas. They’re no good if you don’t keep them up to date.
Getting stuck in the lab is pointless. You need to share your TOV and personas widely. People need to use them in every briefing.