Overview
Buyer personas are a useful tool
to have in any marketer’s toolbox, as they help you understand your customers
better. However, many marketers don’t know how to develop a buyer persona or
even how to get started.
This article will provide you
with an overview of what a buyer persona is, and outline the basic steps needed
to develop a buyer persona.
Note: this blog focuses strictly on developing
buyer personas for B2B, but most of these directions can be applied to B2C
persona creation as well.
Introduction
Developing
a buyer persona, a.k.a., a marketing profile, is something that all marketers
should know how to do and all marketing organizations should be engaged in.
Why? Because it helps you understand your buyers and your customers better.
In today’s
world there are so many ways to connect and engage with buyers, both in-person
and in the digital world that many marketers forget they must have an in-depth
understanding of them prior to beginning any marketing activity.
While that
sounds obvious, the fact is that many marketers forget that step. Due to that,
much of what is created by marketing misses the mark when delivered, as it is
not optimized for or relevant to the buyer. This in turn creates problems for
the business, as marketing is not delivering what is required to help move the buyer
through the various stages of the buying cycle.
This is
where the creation of a buyer persona comes in.
The Who, What and Why of Buyer Personas
Before we
begin developing a buyer persona, we need to understand a few basic facts:
Who
A buyer
persona is a fictional character, developed by marketing, to represent the cumulative
characteristics and behaviors of a typical buyer at a company in the targeted
audience for a product or service. In other words, a buyer persona represents
the average targeted buyer and his/her behaviors and influences that a sales
person might encounter.
What
A buyer
persona is a tool used by marketing to drive greater in-depth understanding of
the targeted customers and the buyers who work for those companies. In short, it’s
a compilation of all the research that marketing has done about target markets,
market opportunity, buying preferences, behaviors, biases, etc., distilled into
a representative fictional character. The persona can be created, modified, or
discarded as needed. Depending on the need, there may be one or more personas
developed.
Why
A buyer
persona is needed because it forces the
marketer to develop a deeper knowledge and understanding of the buyer’s
motivations and behaviors. This enables the marketer to develop marketing that
optimizes how the product or service being sold is positioned. However, before
developing a persona, the marketer must do the necessary research across
several areas.
The
marketer has to not only understand the product or solution being sold, what it
does, what technology is used (if that information is relevant to the
customer), and what the characteristics and features are. He also has to
understand the value and benefits that his product provides, what the
competitive products are (including pricing, positioning, features,
capabilities), and how his product is different/better than the competition.
Of course,
that’s only the starting point. That level of detail is just the basic
information that any marketer must know and understand before beginning the
development of any marketing activity.
The
marketer then has to dive deep into the targeted customers to research, discover
and understand what their problems, issues, pain points, motivations and
challenges are. He must know about the customer’s industry, buying and approval
cycles, and more. He must also know and understand what the objections might be
and how to respond to them, as well as all other factors that might influence a
buying decision. This includes additional items such as: what is the existing
technology infrastructure, are there issues with backwards compatibility, and are
there any other technology issues. In short, the marketer needs to know
everything and anything that could affect or impact the purchase decision.
This depth
and breadth of knowledge is part of the effective development of any marketing
activity, so that the desired outcome is achieved. It’s also critical to the
development of a buyer persona.
How to Develop a Buyer Persona
This is
where the real fun begins.
A buyer
persona can be as superficial or as detailed as you make it; that choice is up
to you. Just remember that the more detailed the persona is, the more likely
you are to use it, as it provides much greater insight into the buyer’s
motivations, biases and behaviors.
The key
point to remember when developing a persona is that buyers are motivated by a business need. More specifically, the buyer
needs to make a purchase that will solve some sort of a problem that affects or
impacts the business.
The
easiest way to illustrate that point is by recalling the old adage, “A customer doesn’t buy a drill because he
needs a drill, he buys a drill because he needs a hole.”
That
motivation is what must be remembered when researching the characteristics to successfully
create a buyer persona. In the business world, buyers are not looking for your
product or service because they like your company. There is some sort of
business issue or problem that your product or service can solve for them.
That’s the real reason for the purchase.
So how do
I start?
Getting Started
If the
target market for your product or service is segmented, you may find it useful
to create more than one buyer persona. This allows you to accurately reflect
the different buyer behaviors and characteristics of companies in the various
segments of your target market. If market is not segmented, you may need to
only create one buyer persona.
When
developing a buyer persona, it should represent as accurately as possible all
of the various inputs that are considered by or could influence the buyer when making
a purchase decision. That’s also where it gets a bit more complicated, as there
are numerous factors that can affect that decision.
Regardless
of how many personas you need to develop, begin the process by gathering the
relevant details that are representative of the targeted buyer. Depending on
the product or service, you may begin with basic demographic information, such
as:
- Industry
- Location
- Title
- Job function
- Age
- What role does the
person hold in the buying process
- Decision maker / Authorizer
/ Influencer
- Is the person
technology- or process-focused
From that
point, you continue to broaden the scope of your research as needed.
You may also
want to include personality traits (whether the buyer is detail-oriented,
process-oriented, focused on numbers, driven by cost, driven by saving money,
wants the latest technology) or other characteristics that help the persona
become more reflective of the targeted buyer.
Note that
a lot of the demographic information that is typically used in B2C customer persona
development (such as gender, income, education, whether they are married,
whether they have kids, how old the kids are, where they go to school, etc.) is
not relevant in the B2B world. Those factors do not impact the business buying
process, so they are not typically included in the buyer persona development
process.
However, in
the B2B sales cycle there are typically many more inputs and influences than there
are in B2C, so you may need to include additional information, such as:
- Who makes the
final purchase decision
- What department is
the person in
- How many people
use the product and are they all in the same department
- How large is the
department
- Do all the people
work in the same location or are they a distributed or remote organization
- Is the person
making the decision a people manager
- What is that
person’s focus area
- Is the person a
gatekeeper
- What is the company
type
- What is the company
size (personnel, revenue, locations)
- What is the
existing technology infrastructure
- Are there any system
or technology compatibility issues
- What is the typical
buying cycle
- What are the
typical approval and authorization processes and timelines
- Does the customer
follow a fiscal or calendar year
- Where does the targeted
customer typically go to do research
- What social media channels
do they use
- What industry
events do they attend
- What publications
do they read
- What professional
organizations do they belong to
- And so forth…
It will
take some time to gather this level of detail, but it will be worth it.
Developing the Buyer Persona
After
you’ve done the necessary research and gathered all the information, then you can
begin to develop the buyer persona. This is done by incorporating as much
information into the character as is needed to accurately represent the typical
targeted buyer for your product or service.
During the
development of the buyer persona, many marketers find it useful to give their
personas names, as that helps them become more “real” and easy to understand
and relate to when developing marketing materials and activities.
It’s also
helpful to remember that depending on the company, the buyer might or might not
be in a traditional Finance department or role. Instead, he might actually have
a completely different function and is responsible for making the purchase for
his department. Because of that, the name chosen for the persona should
indicate the representative characteristics of that type of buyer to help you
easily remember them.
Here are a
few examples of how this can be done, using some of the information that might
have been gathered:
- Buyer Persona 1: Bernard
the Buyer. Bernard is motivated by saving money, so price and cost savings are
both a huge influence on his buying decision. He tends to scrutinize every
expense very closely and is also a stickler for following the approval process.
This means all justifications for purchase must include an analysis of the
selected product compared to the potential others, it must be provided on the
required form, every signature is required, every “i” dotted and every “t” must
be crossed before he will move the purchase requisition along to final
approval. His company uses a fiscal year that doesn’t align with the calendar
year, so any purchase requests that come to him in Q4 may, or may not, be
approved as he may be involved in year-end closing activities. Bernard is known
as a gatekeeper, because he sees it as his responsibility to ensure the company
funds are spent wisely.
- ==> This persona indicates that Bernard is an extremely detail-oriented individual.
As he is also a potential gatekeeper, he will take as much time as he believes
he needs. Bernard will require a lot of detail about the product being
purchased, but not at the technical level. The marketing materials he requires
will provide information on costs, ROI estimates, how fast the product will
provide a productivity increase, etc.
- Buyer Persona 2: Edward
the Engineer. Edward is motivated by always wanting to have the latest
technology, as he wants his department to always be on the leading edge of
technology adoption. He gets his information by subscribing to numerous
newsletters, blogs and industry publications, as well as attending webinars, industry
conferences and events where he can see and experience technology demonstrations
in person. He likes to move quickly, so does not want to take time to fill out
all the forms and justifications, as he considers those to be nothing more than
busywork. Edward also is known for not only suggesting new products, but also
for being willing to help implement them and roll them out. This means he both
suggests and influences product recommendations.
- ==> This persona shows that Edward is someone who can make a decision quickly, but
may try to go around channels to get what he needs, which could negatively impact
whether he can actually get the purchase approved. The type of marketing
materials Edward likes to see include case studies, use cases, white papers,
data sheets, spreadsheet comparisons, technical demos, and anything that
provides insight into the technology used in the product.
- Buyer Persona 3: Victoria
the Vice President. Victoria has a focus on the company’s profitability and bottom
line, so she wants whatever is best for the business. She knows that there are
processes in place that need to be followed, but she also knows that there are
people in other departments who take care of that, so that is not her concern.
Her focus is on continuing to guide the business so that it grows and remains
profitable. She doesn’t typically read a lot of detailed information other than
financial documents, but is interested in research showing potential new areas
of growth for the company.
- ==> This persona indicates that Victoria is someone who likes higher-level types of
marketing materials, whether those are case studies that show actual results
that other businesses have had using your product, or calculator tools that a
sales person can demonstrate by plugging in her specific information to allow her
to see the bottom line impact on her business.
These
examples show you how developing the right buyer personas can provide guidance
on the type of marketing that is necessary for each buyer type. By having this
level of insight into your buyers, you’re able to much more accurately target
the type of marketing materials and actions required to help move that buyer
through the sales funnel, regardless of where they sit within the organization.
Summary
Buyer persona
development is an extremely useful tool for the marketer, because it drives an
in-depth knowledge and understanding of not only the customer, but also the
buyer and his/her influences and motivations. The more detail you include in
the development of the buyer persona, the more realistic and valuable that persona
becomes, which in turn helps you better understand your targeted customer.
By using a
buyer persona, your marketing development process will drive the creation of
more relevant and targeted materials and activities, which in turn will
positively impact your business and help drive sales.
© 2020 – Richard Hatheway, Catalyst
Strategic Marketing
All Rights Reserved
