What is your process for developing buyer personas for a new product launch?

Start with talking to customers to understand how they buy and their decision-making process. If we are working on a quick-turn launch, qualitative research via focus groups is a quick way to get a framework in place and validate product-market fit. With longer timelines, quantitative research can bring depth to user segmentation and buying timelines, and also the competitive landscape. Additionally, it is ideal when user personas are part of the product development process. Then expanding to bu ...Read More

To ensure a successful product launch, it is important to create buyer personas that are tailored to your target audience. Here is a high level process for building these personas: Research and analysis: Conduct a market analysis to understand the industry landscape, trends, and potential customer segments. Engage directly with potential buyers or existing clients through surveys and interviews to uncover pain points, motivations, and needs. Gather insights from sales and customer support teams ...Read More

When preparing for a launch, I start by creating personas because it allows me to effectively represent and advocate for the customer's voice. By understanding who the customers are, their challenges, and what motivates their buying decisions, you'll craft a more impactful product launch, deliver relevant messages, and develop strategies that effectively drive demand and adoption. As I've transitioned between companies and industries, I've had to quickly familiarize myself with different persona ...Read More

I'd argue you should know the buyer persona early in the process - likely at product discovery. This should be an exercise done with Product Management (PM) at the onset of understanding the problem that the product is intending to solve. At that poin, in partnership with PM you should undestand the problem the product is intending to solve and who has it. From there, your job as a PMM is to dig in and understand who would be involved in the purchase. Is your target persona also the decision mak ...Read More

Hey PMM tribe - We all know launching a new product without buyer personas is like throwing a party without knowing who’s on the guest list! You can always hire a research agency to do this for you (if you have deep pockets!) but here is a scrappy guide to building personas yourself to get the job done in this new “era of efficiency”! Step 1: Research, Research, Research: Start with comprehensive research to understand your market. Dive into demographic data, customer surveys, and industry repor ...Read More