And I thought I could interview a bit. Well, no. To get in-depth on buyer personas who to get better insight from than from the master himself. Tony Zambito is the founder and leading authority in buyer personas. He has helped organizations improve marketing and sales performance by deeply understanding their customers and buyers.
Today a class of 14 marketing pro’s got the ultimate info at first hand. Aldo Wink, founder of Inbound Marketing Automation and Lead Generation specialist Stan & Stacy, is clearly paving the way and setting the pace in marketing here. So many are eager to learn the ‘new marketing’ and practise what todays markets are calling for. But in Aldo’s perspective these ‘many’ get it wrong and not thoroughly ‘get’ what it really takes to set up proper content marketing and using buyer personas.
Today we were the first herd to suck up what Tony had to tell. A proper collection of methodology wire-o’d waiting to unravel customer and buyers secrets, accompanied by a bottle of water and a notepad. Beamer and laptop plugged in and let the show begin.
Tony cut the chase and talked us through the first 60 pages bulking with to the point wisdom and comprehension. Starting off explaining the HUM: Hearing, Understanding and Modeling, and doing a handfull of exercises. How to set up a Buyer Persona Development Work Plan. How to interview stakeholders and how to be effective to the bone. Identifying key areas, key goals and research methods. Looking for patterns and how to recognize these. Tomorrow we will dive into mental models, explore context, set up scenarios … and get close to modelling a Buyer Persona.
Whoah. How much did I know already but how little did it match my daily routine. After a day with Tony it all makes so much more sense.
I treat myself with an extra beer and I’m looking forward to and suck up some more of this good stuff.
Was today worth while? You bet!
Cheers, Albert