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When creating buyer personas, all that glitters is not AI gold. At least not yet.
“A buyer persona is a composite sketch of a target market segment based on validated commonalities,” explained B2B marketing strategist Ardath Albee in her recent presentation, Using AI + B2B Personas to Engage Buyers , drive growth and do more with less.
“Personas should actually address how you help people through their buying process and help them make a purchase. That’s why you’re creating them in the first place.”
To do this, you need to know your buyers. It’s a qualitative exercise that requires empathy, not just data. And this is where the problem with using AI shortcuts to create characters comes into play.
“We need to integrate more of that human experience into the content and experiences we provide to our shoppers. And I don’t want us to lose sight of that.”
“I love AI. I use it all the time. I just want you to be skeptical and not take it literally, to your own detriment,” insists Ardath.
Watch this clip from her presentation where she discusses the reality of AI in today’s persona process:
After testing several dedicated AI character generators, she found that the details they provide are often either too high-level or too rudimentary to be meaningful as real, actionable characters.
“It doesn’t give you anything differentiated or extraordinary,” she says. “It’s great general training”, but they just don’t provide the necessary customer information that you can find out in personal interviews.
What works?
“ChatGPT makes me most comfortable,” she says, “because I can have more control over the inputs and influence the elements they build personality on.” And the free version is a good place to start (in its tests, that means GPT 3.5).
“The first thing I do when trying to create a character using ChatGPT is ask them a series of questions to prime their short-term memory. I want to know what they know.” Ardath continues: “What role does this person play in this company? What are his concerns? What obstacles do they face? What options does she have if salespeople don’t follow advice and training? »
“Then once I’ve accumulated all of that, I say, write me a buyer persona.” But you need to go into the process knowing enough basic information about your characters to be able to validate what the AI is telling you. You cannot blindly trust the results.
Once you have that ChatGPT-generated persona, “then start asking them (questions) about what you’re selling,” she says. “I find it tends to give me better information.”
And perhaps this is where AI really shines in the personality creation process. Develop your MVPs (minimum viable personas) and help you improve “everyday” scenarios for everyone, making them faster and easier to create and apply throughout the buying journey.
Watch the full length of Ardath AI for Demand Generation Marketers presentation for more information on the good, the bad and the not quite ready for prime time on the use of AI for buyers.
More resources from the AI for Demand Gen Marketers series
Can AI save you from marketing hell?
Using AI throughout the customer journey requires alignment across teams
