Business Context

In 2016, Monotype launched a new way to license fonts. At the time it was called the 'Monotype Enterprise License' and was sold by sales teams directly to enterprise customers across the globe. Soon after, an MVP of a desktop app was made available to customers - a font management portal with user admin controls, font discovery, sharing and other key features. Later that year, the product marketing team were asked to partner with Demand Generation to create a compelling campaign to attract new customers into the sales funnel. I was asked to work with Product Marketing and Product Management to co-ordinate research and create buyer personas.

Stakeholders

• Product Marketing Manager

• Product Managers

• Demand Gen team

• Sales and customer support teams

Goals

• Define the key buyers for the Monotype Enterprise License 

• Define the other personas in the 'buying unit'

• Understand the behaviours, needs and wants of key buyers.

• Gather feedback on the appeal of key features and high level concept 

• Create personas and buyer journey maps

Approach

Over 2 months I worked collaboratively with the Product Marketing Manager to conduct and project manage research, analysis and persona generation. We undertook:

• Review of previous research

• Stakeholder workshop

• Proto persona generation

• Non customer focus groups  in the USA - partnering with external supplier for recruitment and moderation

• Persona generation workshop

• Buyer journey mapping 

My role was to co-ordinate each activity, ensure the wider team was involved in all aspects of the research and to work collaboratively with the Product Marketing Manager to commission the external supplier. I facilitated the persona generation workshop and assisted with the capturing and writing up of the personas/journey maps. 

Outcomes

The personas and journey maps were shared with the Demand Generation team and sales. The campaign that was developed using them, was the most successful Demand Gen campaign that Monotype had ever had. The number of leads increased and the quality of the leads was much better, which resulted in a much improved sales pipeline. 

"I worked with Emma on several key research projects, and it was always a great experience. She is incredibly thorough and detail-oriented, and I never had to worry about anything when Emma was in charge. She has a very deep understanding of the design community and customer research, and would be a very valuable asset to any organization."

- Kim Mahoney, Senior Product Marketing Manager, Monotype