As a B2B marketer, your job is to know as much about your customer as possible. Think of each buyer persona as being a complex psychological profile, complete with habits, preferences, and behaviors. It goes well beyond just job title or industry.
Here are three questions to ask as you go about creating the perfect buyer persona:
#1: What metrics or numbers are they using to determine success?
You don’t want to be talking past your customer, or comparing apples with oranges instead of apples with apples. If you’re selling sophisticated computer systems, for example, there’s a tendency to focus on “speeds and feeds” – all the technical specifications that separate one system from the other. The goal, of course, is to convince the customer that your system is better, cheaper and faster.
But what if that’s not the way they measure success. Most likely, they are not promoted and given bonuses because they are installing state-of-the-art systems. – they are getting promotions and bonuses because they are delivering results, in the form of higher sales, lower costs, or improved customer satisfaction. What are the metrics or key performance indicators that they are using?
#2: What are their biggest challenges and pain points?
Again, you need to put yourself in the shoes of your customer. What types of challenges are they facing on a quarterly – if not daily – basis? That’s one of the advantages of face-to-face meetings with customers and prospects – you can get a much better read of what types of challenges they are grappling with on a regular basis.
Your goal should be to frame your company’s solution in terms of those pain points. How can you help them to solve their problems? How is your solution better and different than all the other potential solutions out there. If you can solve the problem of what’s keeping your customer up at night, you’ve cracked the fundamental problem of how to craft the perfect marketing message. Instead of fighting to make a sale, you’ll be wondering why things are suddenly so much easier.
#3: Where are they hanging out online?
This is actually a vital question to ask, given the blurring of the online and offline worlds. In order to construct a true buyer persona, you have to know where they are spending time online. Are they spending time on social networks? Are they asking questions in LinkedIn forums? Are there other online communities that cater to their needs?
The reason why this is important is because it can help to uncover ways to build better relationships with your company’s customers. You might discover interests in adjacent fields that open up new selling opportunities. Or you might stumble upon a new trend before others in your industry do. The more niche the interests are, the better. That will help you to create a truly sophisticated buyer persona.
Most likely, after asking these questions, you’ll find out that you actually have several different types of buyers. You’ll learn to recognize their interests, behaviors and preferences. And that will help you to nurture them as sales prospects and push them through the sales funnel. In short, the better your buyer personas are, the more likely that your B2B marketing strategy will be a success.
Dane
Dane Cobain is a published author, freelance writer, book blogger, poet and (occasional) musician from High Wycombe, UK. Before going freelance, he worked as a social media marker, now specialising in writing about publishing, technology and marketing.