How to Regularly Reassess Your Customer Personas

Customer personas help you guide your business messaging and B2B marketing efforts towards the right audience. But one thing most companies don’t take into account is that the needs of your customers change with new technology, new job descriptions, and new turnover.

Once you’ve built your rock-solid client personas, your work isn’t done. You need to keep updating them to make sure you’re still striking the right chord with your customers. Otherwise, you might be presenting an outdated image to a new customer without realizing it.

Here are three ways you can reassess your customer personas as trends in technology rise and fall:

1. Reassess Your Demographic Segments

While you have a firm grip on what’s going on within your industry, the demographics that make up that industry change from time to time. Here’s a look at a few questions you should ask at your next sales and marketing meeting to see if there have been any updates you need to address within your customer profiles:

• What are the emerging trends in the average age of your ideal client? Does that affect your approach to mobility and tablet use?
• How is your customer persona’s company approaching new technology trends? Are they embracing wireless and office-less practices that spread them around the country or world?
• How could any of these changes affect their interpretation of your services? Could you update your value proposition to speak to these changes?

It’s not just your client that is growing up — it’s the technology he uses to do his job. Make sure you account for these changes in your approach to marketing.

2. Track New Releases in Technology

Available and emerging technology also needs to be factored into your customer persona data. Not just things that you might be able to adapt for your company, but things that improve the life and workflow of your ideal customer.

What new social networks are being used? What’s new technology is available to your customers, and how are they handling that evolution?

The new ways in which your clients are using new technology releases may remove the need for some of your services, or at least require an adjustment to them. See the shift coming and take creative preventative measures now.

3. Reposition Yourself for New Pain Points

With changing demographics, technology, and value propositions, your client personas might have brand new needs. If you’re still speaking to the old needs and old pain points, your perspective is no longer providing anything of value to your customer.

Your business needs to grow and adapt to the needs of the market you’re serving. The best way to identify the right direction for growth and adaptation is to reassess your customer personas every six months to account for fluctuations in technology, your industry, and your client’s needs.

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