Daniel Palay

Mary's answer is very good, and comprehensive, and many would do well to simply follow it. For those who enjoy a slightly more spirited debate on the nuances of persona development, I'm going to disagree on a few finer points (in the spirit of sparking a robust discussion!). First, where I absolutely, 100%, agree: Most personas SUCK. They typically come off as a hybrid of an emoji and a Pixar character and tell us NOTHING. I also couldn't agree more that understanding motivations should be the k ...Read More

The best structure and format may not, in fact, be a "persona" at all. You have to ask the question: What should each internal stakeholder be using the persona to accomplish, and what does that look like? Not everyone across the organization knows what to do when handed a buyer persona profile (regardless of format) and that needs to be taken into account. Rather, consider what a "next step" might look like that would be readily understood, and immediately useful to, each constituency.  If we're ...Read More

Very straightforward question, with anything but a straightforward answer. They are each distinct... with roughly an 80% overlap with one another. The biggest differences are whether they are buyer-specific or general and whether one must precede the other. You need a value proposition to create a pitch, and these are typically developed for a particular persona. Similarly, you need messaging to have a coherent story, both of which can be for a broader audience.  The main takeaway is that they a ...Read More

In the "real world" this is a function of whose responsibility sales collateral is. If it's product marketing, the answer is simple: Supply new collateral when it's time for an update. However, if product marketing is responsible for informing, and letting sales create its own materials, then it becomes more complicated. For me, it all starts with the buyer personas (or, as I like to refer to them, stakeholder profiles). I have a particular way of approaching these, leveraging psychographic, rat ...Read More

That all depends on the type of research, its purpose and the impact you hope it will have. The most impactful research, for me, has always been primary market research in the form of interviews with a population representative of the intended audience. All that costs is my time ("opportunity cost" is a discussion for another day).  On the other hand, sometimes the impact comes from the existence of the research in and of itself. For example, a report commissioned from a big-name research firm m ...Read More

Well, the way you have it broke down, you seem to be describing a great researcher, a great engineer and a great writer. Three very different, equally important skillsets.  This is just my opinion, but there is another significant difference between the three, and one that is probably overlooked wayyyyy too often when hiring: how process-oriented one must be to succeed. Launches, for example, are probably best handled by someone who thrives on process. Insights is likely somewhere in the middle, ...Read More

I take a three-dimensional approach to customer segmentation. Within any given "traditional" segment (industry, size, geography, etc.) I look at three things: What problems my client's product solves, the stakeholders involved, and what incentives those stakeholders are responding to.  @Greg Hollander is absolutely right that these often fall flat, but I would expand upon the reasons for that happening. With personas, what I often see is an incorrect assumption that the interests of the customer ...Read More

The part I am most experienced with is the business case justification. Indeed, I tend to build business case justifications and personas into a single narrative in order to make my story lines speak to the issues most important to each stakeholder. Primary market research (1:1 interviews) is the best way to build personas (that inform what stakeholders think about most/most often, and the incentives they're responding to). The resulting personas/profiles are by far the greatest driver of the ul ...Read More