One of the most popular ways to create an effective B2B marketing campaign is to construct a series of buyer personas. Each persona represents a specific type of buyer, in terms of their needs, interests and behaviors.
One easy way to think about these types of B2B buyers is to construct a 4×4 grid. You will label the X-axis “need/motivation” and the Y-axis “passion/emotion.” The goal is to think in terms of segmenting your potential buyers into 4 different groups using “need/motivation” and “passion/emotion” as the two variables.
In this schema, “need/motivation” refers to how motivated the buyer is. At the low end of the spectrum will be the buyer who is just browsing and does not have a pressing business need to fill. At the high end of the spectrum will be the buyer who has a very real business pain point, and probably stays up all night thinking about how to solve it.
The other key factor is “passion/emotion” – this refers to how emotionally vested a buyer is in your brand or product. At the low end of the spectrum will be the type of buyer who has absolutely no brand loyalty, and is willing to change his/her allegiance every year. At the high end of the spectrum will be the type of buyer who is passionately committed to your products.
Based on these two variables, it’s possible to come up with descriptions of the four most common types of B2B buyers:
#1: Industry-leading brand loyalists
These types of buyers score high on “need/motivation” and “passion/emotion.” Ultimately, these will be your best clients. They believe in your mission and they are also passionately committed to the success of their own business. They are determined to remain market leaders, and they want your help to do it. One way to find and track these brand loyalists is by using a tool like Meltwater, which enables you to understand the types of conversations customers are having about you, and then engage with them online.
#2: “Don’t mess with the status quo”
These types of buyers score high on “passion/emotion” but low on “need/motivation.” These buyers are firmly vested in your company’s products, but may have been using your products for years without really thinking about making a change. Due to inertia, they have very little interest in finding new solutions or breaking off the relationship. While it’s great to have a lot of these legacy clients for revenue purposes, the risk is that they will hold you back from boldly innovating. Anything that deviates from the status quo could rock the boat.
#3: “What have you done for me lately?”
These types of buyers score low on “passion/emotion” but high on “need/motivation.” They aren’t necessarily passionate about your products, but are very motivated by performance. As long as you continue to do a good job, they will stick with you. But as soon as performance slips, they could be investigating other vendors. These are buyers that require more monitoring.
#4: The curious and the clueless
Finally, there’s the type of B2B buyer who scores low on “passion/emotion” AND low on “need/motivation.” These buyers don’t really know what’s out there, and may have never heard of your company. Moreover, they may not have a real, pressing business need, so it’s a lot harder to push them through the sales funnel. Every step requires major effort.
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Ultimately, most companies spend way too much of their time on this final category (#4). This is the type of target that most outbound sales approaches tend to target – the 1-2 percent of buyers who might respond to a mass marketing email blast. But if too much of your marketing effort is spent on these individuals you may be ignoring #1, #2 and #3 – the buyers who are really going to be driving the bottom-line growth of your company!
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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.