How to Do Persona Research

The future of marketing is people-centric. But how do you really know your customers?

AI is redefining persona research and unlocking deeper customer insights than ever before.

In the past, brands relied on surveys, interviews, and focus groups to try to understand their customers. The data was fragmented, limited, and failed to reveal the full picture.

People are complex.

You can’t reduce them to neat personas built solely on demographics and attributes.

Now, Chat allows natural conversations at scale.

Let's explore how automated conversations are humanizing marketing.

Persona Research Before AI

In the past, sales reps had a much more difficult time preparing for executive meetings, especially with C-suite personas they weren't familiar with.

They might do some generic internet research about the role, but often went into meetings blind without truly understanding the executive's priorities and motivations.

Reps would end up asking non-personalized questions and presenting irrelevant information during the meeting because they lacked insider knowledge of what that particular executive cares about.

For example, when meeting with a new CFO, they may ramble about capabilities that don't actually help the CFO do their core jobs like financial planning, reporting, compliance, risk management and cash flow management.

Without guidance, reps might also neglect to discuss key trends the CFO is focused on, like capital allocation, balance sheet management and M&A.

This made discovery less effective and wasted precious meeting time that could be better spent discussing the company's solutions.

With AI, sales teams now have an easy way to quickly educate themselves on executive personas before meetings.

How AI Has Transformed Persona Research

AI-powered sales tools can provide detailed profiles of the executives reps will be meeting with, including their responsibilities, goals, challenges and motivations.

For example, when preparing to meet a new CFO, the AI assistant can brief the sales rep on the CFO's typical priorities like financial planning, reporting, compliance, risk management and cash flow.

It can highlight the specific trends the CFO is focused on this quarter and suggest discussion topics that would resonate best with their interests.

AI Sales OS can even analyze the CFO's speaking history and social media to identify their communication style, pet peeves and personality traits.

Armed with these insights, the sales rep can go into the meeting prepared to have an intelligent, productive conversation catered to that particular executive.

They no longer have to waste time with generic small talk and irrelevant capabilities.

Instead, the rep can use the meeting time to demonstrate a deep understanding of the CFO's role and discuss how their solution can help the CFO accomplish their objectives. This level of personalization and strategic focus makes discovery calls far more effective and impactful.

What to Do Next...

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