Move Beyond Fictional Personas
Traditional buyer personas are often fictional profiles based on assumptions: “Marketing Mary, 35, lives in the suburbs, drinks oat milk.” While better than nothing, data-driven personas based on actual customer data are dramatically more useful and accurate.
Building Data-Driven Personas
Analyze Your Customer Data
Start with what you actually know. CRM data reveals demographics, company sizes, industries, and purchase patterns. Website analytics shows how customers find you, what content they consume, and how they navigate to conversion.
Interview Real Customers
Talk to 10-20 customers representing different segments. Ask about their challenges, decision-making process, information sources, and what influenced their choice to work with you. Patterns emerge quickly.
Analyze Sales Data
Which customer segments have the highest lifetime value? The shortest sales cycles? The best retention rates? Focus your marketing on attracting more of your most valuable customer types.
Mine Review and Feedback Data
Customer reviews and feedback reveal what matters most to different segments. The language customers use in reviews becomes powerful marketing copy.
Applying Personas to Marketing
Use data-driven personas to guide content topics (what each persona searches for), ad targeting (demographic and interest profiles), messaging (pain points and motivations), channel selection (where each persona spends time), and offer development (what each persona values most).
Keep Personas Updated
Review and refresh personas annually. Customer behaviors and demographics evolve. Your personas should too.
Build Data-Driven Marketing
Brandastic uses real customer data to build marketing strategies that resonate with your ideal audience. Get a free marketing consultation.
