40+ buyer persona statistics that showcase their effectiveness (2024)

40+ buyer persona statistics that showcase their effectiveness (1)

Buyer persona is the secret weapon to boost your sales and increase your return on investment (ROI). Discover the impact of buyer personas on organizations that use them with 40+ stats listed below.

But before we dive into stats related to buyer personas, let’s make sure to understand what they are. Simply put, buyer personas are examples or models of actual buyers based on various factors. They enable marketers to develop effective strategies to promote products and services to people who might buy them.

Buyer personas play a crucial role in developing a firm understanding of your customers. In today’s world, they not only help businesses achieve exponentially better results but also allow buyers to get personalized and delightful services/experiences. That said, if you don’t have a deep understanding of your buyers, their goals and challenges, you and your company are losing out in a big way.

Interest in buyer personas

Many companies already incorporate personas into their marketing strategies and the interest in personas is definitely growing. Creating and using buyer personas is the new normal for people who are expanding their business and building a good rapport with their buyers. If you are still hesitant to adopt buyer personas, the following stats will definitely convince you otherwise!

40+ buyer persona statistics that showcase their effectiveness (2)

  • As per a study by ITSMA, 44% of marketers use buyer personas for their businesses and an additional 29% will use them in the next 12 months.

    40+ buyer persona statistics that showcase their effectiveness (3)

  • Google trends for “buyer persona” search term over the past 15+ years shows increasing interest in buyer personas, with current interest being at an all-time high.

Boost company performance

High performing companies use personas to understand their buyers better, maintain those personas regularly and put them to use within their organizations.

40+ buyer persona statistics that showcase their effectiveness (4)

Increase leads/conversions to generate more business

40+ buyer persona statistics that showcase their effectiveness (6)

  • As per the ITSMA study, companies using personas have acquired more leads (24%), with higher quality (56%), and reduced sales cycles (36%).
  • High performing companies are also 2.4x times more likely to use buyer personas for demand generation.

Improve customer centricity

40+ buyer persona statistics that showcase their effectiveness (7)

  • 90% of companies that use personas have been able to create a better understanding of their buyers.
  • Buyer personas have helped 82% of companies create an improved value proposition.
  • Persona driven websites are 2-5x times more effective and easier to use by their targeted audiences.
  • 75% of B2B buyers say that the winning vendor’s content has a significant impact on their buying decisions.
  • Positive customer experiences yield 20% higher customer satisfaction rates and 10-15% boost in sales conversion rates.
  • High performing companies are ~2x times more likely to include the buying preferences of their buyer personas, research their drivers/motivations, and understand their fears/challenges.
  • 48% of buyers are more likely to choose solution providers who market to their specific needs.

Use for personalization

Since buyers usually complete 70% of their decision making process using information found online before ever engaging a sales representative, it becomes important for companies to personalize their content. It is only natural that customers will choose a company that gives them a good buyer experience. Your customers won’t just love such customer centric products but will also promote it.

Here are some insights into why personalization goes a long way in securing new buyers and retaining the old ones.

Increase user engagement

40+ buyer persona statistics that showcase their effectiveness (8)

  • As per a MarketingSherpa case study, using buyer personas had a dramatic impact on marketing success - 100% increase in web page visits, 900% increase in length of visits, and 171% increase in marketing generated revenue.
  • Persona based content increased customer engagement by 6x times when cold leads are targeted.

Improve customer segmentation

  • Buyer persona is one of the most popular criteria for segmenting content, with 40% of B2B marketers segmenting content by buyer persona.
  • High performing companies map more than 90% of their customer database by persona.

Boost effectiveness of campaigns

  • According to B2B Content Writing Spotlight Report, 58% of content marketers consider ‘audience relevance’ as the most important factor in determining the effectiveness of content marketing campaigns.

    40+ buyer persona statistics that showcase their effectiveness (9)

  • Using buyer personas in emails increases click-through rates by 14% and conversion rates by 10%, thereby driving 18x times more revenues than broadcast emails.

Case studies

To back up these high level stats, we also refer to a few case studies. Many successful companies have used persona centric marketing campaigns to generate more business and increase their customer outreach. As can be seen, they have been open to trying and adopting buyer personas for a variety of use-cases such as messaging, design, demand generation, sales training, and have derived many benefits.

Check out how these powerhouse companies used buyer personas to their advantage.

Pega

Publicly traded as Pega, Pegasystems is a company that develops software solutions for customer relationship management (CRM), digital process automation, and business process management (BPM). Pega develops and refines its buyer personas in order to engage its buyers earlier and more effectively. Using personas, the company instils a sense of understanding between its marketing, sales, and product teams in order to improve sales productivity.

Pega dedicated months to analyzing data, using a quantitative as well as qualitative approach for persona analysis. It adopted the best practice approaches for persona creation, going as far as enlisting a third party agency for additional expertise.

The end results that the company achieved from the use of personas are by no means ordinary. These stats definitely validate the success of Pega’s new and improved marketing strategies.

  • Number of interactions with target accounts increased by more than 20%
  • Number of marketing generated leads into the pipeline increased by more than 10%
  • Number of opportunities in the pipeline and value of pipeline increased by more than 10%
  • Conversion rate of marketing generated leads to opportunities increased from 32% to more than 40%.
  • Number of marketing sourced opportunities in the active pipeline increased by 20%

Skytap

Skytap, founded by Hank Levy, is a self-service provider of cloud automation solutions. For its content marketing campaigns aimed at creating and converting more leads, Skytap's marketing team creates engaging content by studying potential customers and existing buyers.

Though it required investment of significant resources to understand Skytap’s buyers and build buyer personas, Skytap saw immediate results after incorporating buyer personas into its content marketing campaigns. A case study by Adam Sutton on Skytap’s marketing strategy reveals the following statistics:

  • Website traffic increased by 210%
  • Organic search traffic increased by 55%
  • The number of leads generated by online marketing increased by 97%
  • Leads generated by both online and offline campaigns increased by 24%
  • The number of opportunities generated by online marketing increased by 73%

Conclusion

As evidenced by the mind-blowing stats above, adoption, updates and consistent use of buyer personas can really help grow your business. Personas not only increase sales and profits, but also improve customer centricity and user engagement.

With increased interest and usage by businesses, including competition, it can no longer be a secondary thought for marketers. It has become imperative for all organizations to use buyer personas as a foundational piece of modern marketing.

Regardless of what product or service you sell, you must learn the ins and outs of building, updating and using buyer personas. Learn more about how Persona by Delve AI can help do the job for you!

40+ buyer persona statistics that showcase their effectiveness (2024)

FAQs

What are the statistics about buyer personas? ›

56% of companies generated higher quality leads using buyer personas. 36% of companies have created shorter sales cycles using buyer personas.

How effective are buyer personas? ›

Improve customer centricity

90% of companies that use personas have been able to create a better understanding of their buyers. Buyer personas have helped 82% of companies create an improved value proposition. Persona driven websites are 2-5x times more effective and easier to use by their targeted audiences.

Have 90% of companies using personas have been able to create a clearer understanding of their buyers? ›

90% of companies using Personas have been able to create a clearer understanding of who buyers are. 82% of companies using Personas have managed to create an improved value proposition. 70% of companies who miss revenue and lead goals do not account for the full buying committee with their Personas.

How many buyer personas is ideal? ›

Depending on your business, you could have as few as one or two personas or as many as 10 or 20. But if you're new to personas, start small. You can always develop more personas later if needed.

How many personas is too many? ›

Often, one buyer persona per industry niche is enough. If you create too many personas, you can lose focus on your primary sales strategy and make it difficult for your sales team to make a clear, consistent pitch.

How do you analyze buyer persona? ›

How to Define Your Buyer Personas in 5 Steps
  1. Step 01: Research Your Buyer Personas. ...
  2. Step 02: Segment Your Buyer Personas. ...
  3. Step 03: Create a Name and a Story For Your Buyer Persona. ...
  4. Step 04: Focus on Roles, Goals, and Challenges. ...
  5. Step 05: Use Your Buyer Personas to Craft Tailored Digital Marketing and Sales Strategies.

Why do personas fail for marketing? ›

There's a fundamental flaw with the personas

Personas are not a one-size-fits-all tool; they should be used with a specific, well-defined goal in mind. For personas to be useful, the data captured in a persona should reflect the goal for that persona and the scope of work it is meant to impact.

Why personas are outdated? ›

Meaning you design around what your audience want's to know instead of what you want to tell them. The traditional persona falls short on both points. You can't provide context if you don't have a clear understanding of your audience and most personas lack the detail required to influence design decisions.

Can you have too many personas? ›

Creating too many buyer personas will inevitably segment your target audience to the point where creating content for each individual persona is simply impossible (unless you have the resource, of course) and dilutes your focus.

Why personas are not good? ›

Even the most well-researched personas have limitations

Another major problem is: Manufactured personas often fall flat, coming across as abstract or one-dimensional. In this case, they don't seem like real people, and it is hard for employees and customers to really relate to or empathize with them.

How many buyer personas interview should you aim to complete? ›

The rule of thumb is to complete at least 8 to 10 buyer interviews.

What are the two main types of customer personas? ›

Buyer persona: represents your ideal target customer to purchase your product or service. Because they have the highest relation to your revenue, they play a significant role in your marketing strategies, and sales funnel. User persona: represents the users or the customers using your product or service.

What are the 3 categories of user personas? ›

3 Persona Types: Lightweight, Qualitative, and Statistical.

What are the three stages of the buyer persona? ›

The buyer's journey framework is made up of three stages: awareness, consideration, and decision.

What is the best way to create a buyer persona? ›

You'll give this buyer persona a name, demographic details, interests, and behavioral traits. You'll understand their goals, pain points, and buying patterns. You can even give them a face using stock photography or illustration if you want — because maybe it's important for your team to put a face to a name.

Are user personas outdated? ›

Most teams update personas every 1–4 years. Our survey respondents also rated how successful the personas were in creating a better user experience in the final product on a 1–7 scale (1= lowest; 7=highest).

What is the max amount of personas Persona 4? ›

The Protagonist, however, can have up to 12 total Persona cards in his hand at any one time once you have reached a high enough level.

How many personas are there in agile? ›

Ideally, some organizations create 3-4 Agile personas. Remember that Agile personas represent your most valued customers, not a generalized audience. This approach helps a team get a better understanding of who they are building the product for.

Who is the buyer persona of Netflix? ›

Target Audience of Netflix – Buyer Persona

The first persona is Nidhi Sharma. She is 23 and is a cinephile. She watches everything new and trending. She has recently started working and is always juggling to find time between her commute to work to watch her favourite shows.

How do you collect data for buyer persona? ›

Gather Data

Marketers can craft buyer personas by examining data from various sources. The data can come from market research, survey results, and telephone or face-to-face interviews. The sources can be from current customers, former buyers and prospects that fit your target audience.

What is buyer persona mapping? ›

Persona mapping is the development of customer profiles based on different segments of your target audience so that you can understand and connect with them most effectively. These profiles reflect the audience's characteristics such as personal attributes, behavior, motivations, and values.

How do you make powerful personas? ›

  1. Step 1: Do research. Source: chaione.com. ...
  2. Step 2: Segment your audience. ...
  3. Step 3: Decide on the layout. ...
  4. Step 4: Set demographic info. ...
  5. Step 5: Describe Persona's background. ...
  6. Step 6: Define Persona's goals. ...
  7. Step 7: Define motivations and frustrations. ...
  8. Step 8: Add other ingredients.
Oct 5, 2021

What two research techniques are used to develop personas? ›

Personas can originate from a combination of surveys, user interviews, observations, or any other user research method mentioned in this book. Personas are different from segmentation because data are collected with the focus on the problem area that the given project embraces.

What is a good example of user persona? ›

What is an example of a user persona? An example of an average user persona can consist of a name, occupation information, demographics, a personal story, pain points, and challenges. With these elements involved, the user persona is more likely to demonstrate a real human being accurate.

What are the weaknesses of user personas? ›

Weaknesses of personas
  • The wrong people working on the personas. Let's pretend your business is selling telecommunication equipment to corporations. ...
  • Not enough personas / Too many personas. ...
  • Working with incorrect data.
Jul 27, 2016

What is the main problem of the persona? ›

The Problems with Personas

The biggest downfalls with using personas is not basing them on the right attributes from the start. They tend to focus on characteristics, and are often created with little insight into the behavior of the people they represent.

At what point does a brand stop developing personas? ›

At what point does a brand stop developing personas? When the cost of finding information about a new subset of a persona is greater than the benefit of marketing to that subset.

What makes a good user persona? ›

The user persona normally consists of both a fictional name and a picture of the person. This is followed by a short bio, along with a description of their age, gender, occupation, hobbies, likes and dislikes, which are non-fictional and based on real aggregated data.

What traps should you avoid when developing a consumer Persona? ›

Here are six common buyer persona mistakes to avoid.
  • Profiling Ideal Buyers, Not Real Buyers. ...
  • Over-Relying on Anecdotes. ...
  • Fixating on Demographic Information. ...
  • Reading Too Much into Your Stock Photos. ...
  • Using a Small Sample Size. ...
  • Creating Too Many Personas.

Should I capture all personas? ›

Collect Every Persona

Even if it means getting rid of one you're currently holding, try to capture every new Persona you can. This will help a ton with late-game fusions and for your second (or later) play through.

Can normal people see personas? ›

In Persona 2: Innocent Sin, it is implied through NPC interaction during Hitler's attack on Sevens that normal people are unable to see Personas.

What are the 4 personas? ›

Competitive, Spontaneous, Humanistic, and Methodical are the four types of online purchasing personas. Knowing how each persona thinks and acts could help you exponentially when creating your online strategy. A competitive persona is exactly how it sounds. They are looking for your competitive advantages.

How do you avoid bias in personas? ›

To limit potential bias in persona imagery:

Try an action image over a stationary headshot for stronger, emphasized attributes. Black and white images can minimize the potential influence of race and culture. The more abstraction, the better.

Why create a negative persona? ›

Negative personas identify users you shouldn't be targeting with your messaging, which helps you fine-tune your message and attract higher-quality leads.

What are the 7 buying roles? ›

The major roles or responsibilities of buyers are obtaining proposals or quotes, evaluating them and selecting the supplier, negotiating the terms and conditions, issuing of purchase orders, follow up and keeping track of deliveries.

Who is an intelligent buyer? ›

Overall being a smart consumer means to thoroughly research the product you are buying and ensuring it is intended to safely and efficiently do what you bought it for. Consumers have a right to having choices, safe products, and making informed choices in the marketplace.

What are the typical B2B buyer personas? ›

A B2B buyer persona is a fictional representation of an individual prospect who works within a company that you determine would make the ideal customer. It represents the “type” of person you want to target – based on traits like role, decision-making authority, and need.

Why are buyer personas valuable? ›

Buyer personas are incredibly important for market segmentation. They allow you to segment your customers into different groups. Knowing the different motivations and purchasing habits of your customers will allow you to target different groups appropriately.

What is the difference between user persona and buyer persona? ›

They serve different purposes for marketers

That said, the end goal of a buyer persona is to better understand how that person behaves and makes decisions as a consumer. The objective of a user persona, on the other hand, is to help you empathize with those who use what you produce.

What is the difference between ideal customer and buyer persona? ›

The short and sweet of ICP vs persona is that an ICP represents an ideal business that you want to sell to, while a persona is a detailed account of the people who could benefit from your products or services. Oftentimes, a persona will represent a specific buyer or decision-maker within your ICP.

What are two other common terms for a buyer persona? ›

What are some other names for buyer personas?
  • User persona (if your product is software and your user is also the buyer)
  • Audience persona.
  • Customer persona.
  • Buyer avatar.
  • Customer avatar.
  • Ideal audience avatar.
  • Buyer profile.

What is statistical personas? ›

Statistical personas are created using a mix of a large amount of statistical data as well as similar methods to creating qualitative personas. For statistical personas, the team would gather a large amount of data through surveys of your potential users.

What is the problem with buyer personas? ›

As a result, buyer personas are often based on assumptions, making them inaccurate and not representative of the people that businesses are trying to target! There's no point in creating buyer personas if you don't actually interview customers and prospects to get the data you need.

What do buyer personas consist of demographic insights and ___________? ›

A buyer persona is a fictional, generalized character built to represent your ideal and largest target markets. They usually encompass not only demographic information like age, location and income, but also psychographic information like interests and motivations and concerns in their purchasing decision.

What are the five statistical? ›

The five basic methods are mean, standard deviation, regression, hypothesis testing, and sample size determination.

What are the three core components of personas? ›

There are three main components to consider when defining community personas: characteristics, influencers, and workflows. By defining these three components for your persona types you can better understand who your members are, what motivates them, and how you can best help them use the community in a successful way.

Why are buyer personas important in b2b? ›

Creating different b2b buyer personas can have a number of benefits: It gives you a better understanding of customers, allowing you to more effectively market to them. It allows you to see if there are any personas you shouldn't be marketing to. It helps internal staff to understand customers better.

What is buyer persona target audience? ›

What is a Buyer Persona? Buyer personas differ from target audiences in that they are much more focused. Whereas a target audience defines a group of customers, a buyer persona zooms in to look at specific members of that group. These zoomed-in portraits are archetypes of individual customers.

What is buyer persona examples? ›

A buyer persona is a representation of your ideal customer, based on real data about their age, gender, income level, job title, and other factors. Creating a buyer persona allows you to better understand your target market and craft marketing messages that resonate with them.

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