ROI from personas

Personas are worthwhile

First things first: Yes, personas cost. Either money or work, or a bit of both. That's why many companies that haven't yet gained experience with the topic first look at the cost and effort. They ask themselves, "Is it worth the effort? Or are personas just the latest fad in marketing and more appearance than reality?"

In times when one crisis news follows the other, many have a tight budget anyway and want to be sure that their expenses are worthwhile. To all of them, let me say: Personas initially cause costs, but they ARE not costs, but an investment. And a very worthwhile one, in the future and competitiveness of the company. Because: If you don't know exactly who you are targeting, you can only send a very general content strategy and advertising messages. And vague messages don't catch on.

If you want to communicate in a targeted manner, you need customer knowledge. Most companies have this customer knowledge from dealing with their most important customers, first and foremost the sales department and the management. But beware: sales and management are a - quite small - bubble in which self-reinforcing effects and misperceptions can occur: Of course, sales people are close to the customer. But they are also out to "close the deal" and therefore may be fixated on a core issue, be it cost or quality. They only see a small part of the customer journey and ignore the fact that the customer may not be as eager to reduce costs as they think, especially with B2B customers. The management knows important reference customers very well and often ignores the fact that these customers are already important customers precisely because the company has already managed to address their needs and pain points.
What "falls behind" are all the potential new customers out there who have not yet been reached. You can reach them either with luck or a lot of advertising effort - or via data-driven personas. However, having a persona does not generate a positive ROI. It depends on how you use them.

Facts, figures and data: Why personas are worth the effort

The U.S. market research company Forrester found that personas and customer journey maps based on them bring significant monetary value if they succeed in tailoring the customer experience to the target group. Whoever offers the best buying experience gets the customer. Customers will even abandon purchases if the customer experience is better elsewhere. Redesigning a website using personas can yield up to four times the return on investment of a redesign without personas, according to Forrester. Personas also pay off in other areas, here are some real-world examples:

• Barclays Africa improved its complaint management with Personas and subsequently saw 18% fewer complaints and 44% more compliments over the course of a year. (Forrester)
• A software company that tested persona-based content on cold and warm leads achieved a 20% increase in sales as a result. (Bright Talk)
• Marketigng Data Services' NetProspex website relaunch and email campaign with Personas achieved, among other things, a 100% increase in pages visited, a 46% increase in conversion rate, and, the most important number, a 171% increase in marketing-generated revenue. (Marketing Sherpa).

Nevertheless, many companies find it difficult to convince all stakeholders that personas are worth the seemingly large investment compared to the total costs of a website redesign, for example. However, in view of the up to four times higher return on investment with personas, it is worthwhile to get all stakeholders on board step by step with small, demonstrable successes. This is the fastest way to achieve ROI:

• The fastest way to ROI for buyer personas is to tailor marketing messages. Companies that manage to explain how and why they solve customers' problems better than the competition win the most new customers. Those who deliver the right product, but fail to communicate it appropriately, come away empty-handed.
• The right channels go hand in hand with this: If you have the right content, you will also miss out if no one sees it. data-driven personas reveals where exactly your customers are on the move.
• The Sales Team: The ROI for Buyer Personas starts when your sales team can put themselves in the shoes of the potential customer. The Buyer Persona Institute, our U.S. counterpart, states that in 81% of their studies, buyers say that they exclude vendors whose sales team doesn't understand their needs or can't answer their questions. Your Buyer Persona will tell you exactly what questions customers are asking and what answers they are looking for, so you can train the team and adapt your materials.
• Events: When planning events, optimize invitations by focusing on your customers' most pressing needs and brief your speakers accordingly.

An investment in personas improves long-term metrics across all areas of marketing, including demand generation, lead nurturing, and conversion rates. Sales teams see shorter close times, and product teams can evolve toward what customers want.

The value of personas is directly proportional to the quality of insights about how, when, and why buyers choose solutions like yours. That's why it's important that personas don't remain vague. Therefore, costs are mainly incurred in conducting primary research, the analysis of the results that lead to the creation of personas. This is the advantage of the Persona Institute: We take the market research off their hands, because the access to the necessary data is already there. So we can create exactly the personas you need in a very short time.
Little time + little effort + precise personas = proportionally lower costs with great impact and fast ROI.