Using Personas To Inform Marketing And Sales Efforts: Three Examples

Personas are especially helpful in getting employees to understand and obsess about customer needs — the first principle required for Experience-Based Differentiation. While personas have been used to improve the quality of products ranging from software to in-store environments, firms are also using them to inform marketing and sales interactions. For example, Slim•Fast and Avenue A | Razorfish use personas to improve email campaigns, Nortel and Quarry Integrated have a persona-based interactive tool that guides sales reps, and Organic's persona rooms give DaimlerChrysler stakeholders a tool for quickly coming to consensus about marketing plans that involve multiple agencies. To get the most from personas, firms should make sure that they include the right information to guide marketing projects and prioritize efforts by tying persona segments to quantitative data.