How often should you audit and update your buyer personas?

[JorieMunroe]

Buyer personas can be created through research, surveys, and interviews — all with a mix of customers, prospects, and those outside your contacts database who might align with your target audience.

But like all data, even information you gather on your audience (your personas) can go out of date. After all, business models change, companies merge or shift direction, and your audience can (and likely will) evolve. In your professional opinion, how often should you audit and even update your buyer personas?

*To learn more about this, check out the Using Buyer Personas in HubSpot lesson via HubSpot Academy. 

[PeiyaoXiao]

Audit and update buyer personas annually, adapting to industry changes, business shifts, and customer feedback for targeted marketing strategies.

[QRYe]

I update the details frequently to make sure my target audience is accurate.

[SEscolero]

The frequency with which you should audit and update your buyer personas depends on several factors, including changes in your business environment, shifts in your target audience, and the evolution of your products or services.

[DSears]

Minimumly buyer persona should be updated annually. However, there should be buyer personas for each new update to the company whether thats policy, website site, or new product.

[Shub_R]

In B2B it should be done every 6 months or whenever there are big changes in your target audience.

For example - If you're adding a new feature/product in your catalogue, you need to update your buyer persona aligned to the new feature or product you've created.

If you're a Business SMS Solution and you wish to add WhatsApp as a platform as well, then you need to research on the regions which use WA frequenty and the businesses which function in that region.

[BrodyChaffin]

You should update your persona everytime you want to switch your target market or on a timely scale, because consumers minds are always changing, such as every few months to see if anything has changed and if you need to tweak your persona slightly according to what has changed.

[CWade1]

Brody - you raise a good point about consumers' minds changing all the time.  Consumers are bombarded with new products that compete with each other. Researching what buyers are interested in on a more regular basis could be key to staying on top of the sales game.

[Azwa]

Buyer personas should be updated regularly, ideally yearly or quarterly, based on organizational goals. However, it's crucial to recognize that consumer preferences and buying behavior can change, so buyer personas should remain flexible and adaptable to reflect these shifts accurately.

[ErnieFowlke]

For a startup like us, we want to audit and update our persona quarterly. After the first year, we'll look at this every six months and then annually after year three.

[AVoskanian]

I feel like buyer personas should be refreshed as each season goes by. That's when buyer personas change and people switch their interests as far as what to purchase. Whether it may be weather-related or a new release of a specific product within your company.

[AriSaenz]

You should check and refresh your buyer personas every six months or whenever there are big changes in your target audience or the market. This helps make sure your marketing strategies stay on point and effective.

[BKuku]

Audit and update buyer personas annually or when significant changes occur in your business, industry, or target audience demographics or behaviors.

[SSalvemini]

You should audit and update your buyer personas annually 

[LALemus]

There's never a one size fits all answer for marketing. In my case, as a freelancer I've done it twice a year. When I've been working or consulting for companies it should go from 3 months to 4 months according to their resources, but... It also depends on how relevant is the update, somethimes it can be something that changes the gme, it needs to be done ASAP, or something that may not change at all the outcome but it is nice to know, it can wati

[MJohnson39]

every quarter

[ksydnor]

I believe that developing a buyer persona should be customized to suit the specific needs and dynamics of your company. For instance, if your organization is experiencing shifts in the economy or undergoing changes internally, it presents an opportune moment to create or update your buyer persona. In my perspective, conducting a buyer persona audit ideally falls within the range of eight to six months, or whenever significant changes occur within the company or the market landscape, as mentioned earlier.

[Tems]

Change is inevitable and constant and this phrase affects humans and directly should affect marketing activities. Due to this auditing and updating buyer persona should be an ongoing process. However, the frequency of these audits may vary depending on factors such as changes in market trends, shifts in customer behavior, or updates to product or service offerings. Also, it's essential to revisit and adjust personas whenever significant changes happen in your target audience or business landscape. 

[CWade1]

Hello Ksydnor,

Auditing your company's persona's every 6-8 monts, if you have the time, personnel and budet to do it, will put you ahead of other businesses who audit annually.

[CLobo1]

If possible (based on resource availability, cost and implied value of the persona), updates should be a real-time continuous improvement process, where information gathered from surveys with recent customers should be updated into the persona.

By following a continuous improvement method with the persona's, it will help keep the buyer persona intelligence relevant, and accurate with your ideal customer profile. As we all know these personas are not only critical to marketing, but all the other revenue generating departments such as sales, customer success and support teams. The persona gives an idea on the challenges that your customer is facing and the reasons for evaluating and considering your solutions as the final choice.

Each time you gather some new intelligence from a recent win, adding that information to the persona can help both sales and marketing to take the insights and focus on the channels, messaging and sales actions that work well.

[RChiluka]

At least, buyer personas should be audited every year to keep up with ever evolving audiences. Also, cultural and societal events such as COVID-19, social issues, and key climate change updates are great times to keep up with any sudden audience shifts.

[CWade1]

It's smart how you've considered social issues and climate changes in the re-evaluation of your business's personas.