(3) Hubspot Inbound Marketing Certification 3: Getting to Know Your Customer

Full Set from Section 3 derived from official transcripts.

Apple iPhone 3G in Japan (2008): what happened and why?

It sold only 200,000 phones in a market of 50M+ cell phone users because Apple didn't understand its customers. Japanese buyers highly valued video recording, which the 3G lacked.

Lesson of the Apple iPhone 3G Japan example

All companies, no matter how big, need to know their customers.

Buyer persona

A fictional, generalized representation of your ideal customer. It helps you tailor content to the specific needs, behaviors, and concerns of different buyer types.

Questions buyer personas help answer

Your ideal customers' background, goals, and challenges; their interests and needs; what incentivizes them; and where they get their information.

Benefit of buyer personas for lead nurturing

Instead of sending the same nurturing emails to everyone in your database, you can tailor messaging to each persona.

Two components of a buyer persona

Demographic insights and buying insights.

Demographic insights

Describe who your buyer is: age, gender expression, income, family life, hobbies, etc.

Buying insights

Describe how your buyer makes decisions: priorities, what success looks like, barriers to overcome, how they evaluate options, and which attributes they weigh.

What buying insights reveal (per Adele Revella, "Buyer Persona")

Which buyers are receptive vs. will ignore you; which aspects of your solution are relevant; what attitudes block consideration; which resources buyers trust; and which buyers influence the decision and how much.

Scenario: Research shows your persona has little time and must decide quickly. What might you change?

Re-evaluate the length of your sales cycle.

HR Hannah persona summary

HR manager focused on hiring and retaining top talent; overloaded, under-resourced, shrinking budget, boss doesn't always value HR; 30-50, $90K-$130K, 6+ years' experience, urban.

Why write a persona story in addition to a bulleted list?

It humanizes the persona so everyone in the organization can remember them when creating content or talking to leads and customers.

Negative persona

People who aren't a good fit, e.g., those who buy, are unhappy because it doesn't meet expectations, and leave shortly after. Lets you filter them out and focus marketing and sales efforts.

How many buyer personas should you create?

As few as appropriate. Don't create one per demographic.

How should buyers be grouped into personas?

By buying insights (how they make decisions), which is more beneficial than demographics.

When should you create a second persona?

When analysis reveals groups with different expectations AND having two personas would create a more persuasive marketing strategy.

Where should you always start when building personas?

By listening to the stories your buyers share with you.

Harold Geneen quote and its persona lesson

"You start with the end..." Start with customers who have already been through the decision-making process.

Goal of persona research

Understand the mindset of buyers as they make the decisions you want to influence.

Five things persona research should uncover

Buyer demographics; what success looks like; why buyers invest in similar solutions; what prevents them from considering yours; and what influences each phase of their decision.

Productive ways to gather customer stories

Surveys, forms, your sales team, social media, and interviews.

Surveys: strength and caution

Popular and fast with predetermined questions, but better for VALIDATING insights you already have than for creating new ones.

Forms: best used for

Quickly capturing demographic and basic info like company size, purchasing needs, and how they found you.

Why consult your sales team for persona research?

They spend the most time talking to buyers and can generalize about the customers you serve best.

Social media for persona research

Find which platforms buyers discuss you on and use a social monitoring tool to track keywords related to your solution.

Best way to gain insight for a buyer persona

Interviews with customers, potential customers, and people who chose a competitor.

Three categories of the interview process

Who to interview, how to increase response rate, and what questions to ask.

Four groups to interview

Customers; people who considered you but chose a competitor; people who considered you but chose no new solution; people who never considered you and chose a competitor.

Why interview people who considered you but chose a competitor?

Extremely valuable. Most can explain what went wrong.

What can people who considered you but chose no solution reveal?

Insights into the market as a whole.

Which interview group is least likely to agree to talk?

People who never considered you and chose a competitor, since they invested little time with you.

Where to start sourcing interviewees

Your sales reps' database.

When should you NEVER conduct a persona interview?

While the person is actively considering your solution, to avoid disrupting the sales rep's relationship.

Pro tip before requesting contacts from sales

Have the head of marketing give the head of sales a heads up, since sales can be protective of relationships.

Sourcing interviews via referrals

Especially useful if working with sales isn't an option. Use LinkedIn to find persona fits with common connections and ask for introductions.

Qualitative research recruiters

Third-party agencies that find interviewees. Especially useful for finding buyers who never considered you, e.g., entering a new market, launching a product, or learning why you're excluded.

Ideal interview candidates

The most active participants in the decision, who decided within the last 3-6 months, ideally interviewed before onboarding.

Why interview buyers before onboarding?

Customer experiences like onboarding can cloud their judgment about the buying journey.

Most effective way to get someone to agree to an interview

Email. Phone calls usually hit voicemail and need email follow-up anyway.

What to include in an interview request

Clarify it's not a sales call or survey, ask for candid feedback, state the time (about 20 min), mention any incentive (e.g., Visa gift card), explain how to contact you, suggest flexible times or send a meetings link.

Why tell interviewees it's not a survey?

People tend to ignore surveys.

No response to first outreach: what next?

If your list has more than 10 options, move on. If not, consider a third-party agency.

Rule of thumb for number of persona interviews

At least 8-10.

Who should conduct persona interviews?

Someone NOT involved in the sales process, so feedback is honest and free of bias toward a specific person.

How to prepare for a persona interview

Research their LinkedIn (role, company, evaluation timing, priority features) or ask sales. At minimum, know their company.

Interview flow

Small talk (life outside work, hobbies, demographics) then their role (skills, tools, success metrics) then how they consume info and shop, and finally, most importantly, their decision-making process.

Most important thing to uncover in a persona interview

Their decision-making process.

Best question types for decision-making

Open-ended "How did you decide...?" and "Why did you decide...?"

Recommended opening decision question

"Take me back to the day you first decided to evaluate [solution category]. What changed to make it a priority?"

Why ask interviewees to describe a recent purchase?

It gives insight into their shopping preferences.

Recommended interview length

20-30 minutes.

Interview best practices

Record with permission, be curious, and ask follow-up questions beyond the script. The best interviewers discover themes through follow-ups.

Analyzing interviews

Parse out key insights per question, e.g., "easy solution + autoresponder" means reasons to invest are easy setup and automated marketing. Then look for patterns across interviews.

HubSpot's free persona tool

Make My Persona. It turns interview data into a downloadable, presentable persona document.

Final step after creating personas

Present findings to the whole company (company meeting or department by department) so everyone stays aligned as strategies change.

Role of email in sharing personas

A supplement to reinforce alignment, not the main mode of communication.

Four ways personas affect strategy

Reallocate ad spend to where buyers are; segment lists by persona; optimize webpages with dynamic content; create content tailored to personas.

Best way to deliver a personalized experience (per the course)

List segmentation based on buyer persona.

Dynamic content

Displays different messaging on webpages based on the persona a visitor is assigned to.

Persona-based content tip

Create content that solves persona problems using the language your buyers actually use.

Payoff of accurate buyer personas

Becoming a customer-first company, with Marketing, Sales, and Service aligned toward a common goal.