As a marketer, salesperson or business owner, you have probably already come across the expression “Buyer Persona” while reading on the web, or perhaps in the classroom. These semi-fictional representations help you map out and visualize your ideal customer profiles to guide your sales and marketing strategy and refine your offering accordingly.
In a context where the behavior of consumers (B2C) and buyers (B2B) is changing, Buyer Personas have taken on a major importance! Without a thorough understanding of your target’s expectations, aspirations, fears, concerns and even the verbatim used by your target, you will not be able to personalize your sales and marketing tactics… a major handicap in a very competitive environment.
Okay, you’re convinced… but how do you create Buyer Personas from scratch? Contrary to what one might think, this mission is not very complicated. A few common-sense steps are all it takes to meet the challenge. In this practical guide, the Twilead team guides you through the development of your Buyer Personas step by step. Let’s go !
What is a Buyer Persona?
The expression “Buyer Persona” is an Anglicism (Buyer) tinged with Latin (Persona) that can be translated as buyer’s character. The term was widely popularized in the 2000s by author and marketer Adele Revella in her best-selling book ” The Buyer Persona Manifesto “. She is now the head of theBuyer Persona Institute, an organization that provides marketers with actionable data to “activate” personas and improve the overall performance of their businesses. Let’s close the historical parenthesis.
The Buyer Persona is a detailed profile of an ideal buyer for a company or, more specifically, a particular product or service. It is usually developed from a pool of data collected from prospects or existing customers, or from prospective data to imagine an “ideal” Buyer Persona. These data are :
- Qualitative: interviews with existing clients, open surveys with prospects, analysis of comments on social networks, satisfaction surveys on existing clients, transcriptions of exchanges by messaging, email or telephone, etc.
- Quantitative: demographic statistics (age, gender, education level, profession, income, etc.), web browsing data (pages visited, time spent on the site, etc.), advertising campaign tracking data(clicks, conversions, etc.) and sales data (products purchased, frequency of purchase, etc.).
This includes demographic, behavioral and psychographic information about the profiles that are already buying or are likely to buy the company’s products or services. The objective is obvious: to summarize the needs, motivations and objections of potential buyers in a fun and easy-to-read format in order to adapt the marketing effort, whether at the operational, tactical or strategic level. The stakes are high: with Buyer Personas developed according to the rules of the art, the company can :
- Formulate a promise and a marketing message that resonates with your target audience;
- Identify the channels likely to reach the target;
- Optimize marketing costs by targeting the right people at the right time on the right channels.
Figures to know about Buyer Personas
Overall, studies that have looked at the role of Buyer Personas in marketing strategy show that companies that use this tool perform better. Here are some examples:
- According to a study by Cintell, 71% of companies that exceed their sales goals have formal and detailed documentation of their Buyer Personas ;
- According to the same study, top-performing companies are 7 times more likely to manage and update their Buyer Personas regularly;
- According to a study conducted by ITSMA, companies that use Buyer Personas acquire 24% more leads, with a quality 54% higher than others and, above all, a 36% shorter sales cycle;
- Top performing companies are 2.4 times more likely to use Buyer Personas in their lead generation efforts;
- According to Cintell, 90% of companies that use Buyer Personas develop a better understanding of their target’s needs;
- According to this study, 82% of companies believe that their Buyer Personas have helped them develop and improve their value proposition;
- According to a study conducted by Marketing Sherpa, the use of Buyer Personas has a significant impact on marketing success. In one specific case study, incorporating relevant Buyer Personas documentation (and modifying the marketing strategy accordingly) boosted the company’s web page visits by +100%, visit duration by +900% and revenue generated by +171%.
Concrete examples of Buyer Personas in B2B
If we were to make a rough analogy with the world of criminology, the Buyer Persona is similar to the sketch of your target… except that we are in a behavioral and socio-demographic portrait, as opposed to the sketch which is essentially physical. Find in the following table some concrete examples of Buyer Personas in B2B.
|
Last name |
Demographics |
Professional role |
Professional objectives |
Professional needs |
Fears and concerns |
Purchasing behaviors |
|
Jacques |
Male, 35-45 years old, business school graduate, married, two children |
Marketing Director of a medium-sized company |
To increase the sales Improve brand awareness Increase market share Measuring the ROI of the marketing function |
Marketing automation tools Performance Monitoring Solutions Quality content for marketing campaigns |
Waste of marketing budget, lack of tangible results |
Learns about market trends, researches different online marketing tools by reading blog posts, white papers and attending webinars. He is also active on social networks and discussion groups to exchange with other marketing professionals. They tend to rely on expert opinions and customer reviews to make a purchase decision. |
|
Sophie |
Female, 40-50 years old, university graduate, married, one child |
Sales Manager of a medium-sized company |
To increase the sales Improve relationships with existing customers Develop new markets Recruiting sales people |
Customer Relationship Management Solutions Sales performance monitoring tools Training for sales teams |
Loss of existing customers Difficulty in reaching new customers Difficulty in recruiting |
Active search for information on online customer relationship management solutions Compare options before making a purchase decision Tends to rely on the opinions of other sales professionals |
|
Pierre |
Male, 25-35 years old, university graduate, single |
Purchasing manager of a medium-sized company |
Optimize purchasing Get the best prices Improve supplier relationships |
Purchasing management tools Purchasing performance monitoring solutions Training for purchasing teams |
Poor product quality Delivery times not respected Difficulty in finding reliable suppliers |
He is active on social networks and discussion groups to exchange with other purchasing professionals. They tend to rely on expert opinions and customer reviews to make a purchase decision. They also prefer to have direct contact with suppliers to discuss their needs and proposed solutions. He is very sensitive to commercial offers and guarantees. |
Steps to follow to develop your Buyer Personas in B2B
Developing Buyer Personas is a crucial step in implementing an effective marketing strategy, especially in B2B, for two reasons:
– Missingyour Buyer Personas means basing your entire marketing strategy on false assumptions. Your value proposition, marketing message and channels used will not be optimal, and your ROI will take a serious hit;
– In B2B, the buying process is relatively complex. The buyer does not make the decision alone, but rather in a small group. Also, because the average ticket is generally high, the purchase decision takes more time and requires more research. This buying behavior must be marked out so that you can deliver the right message at the right time.
It is recommended to start developing your Buyer Personas at the beginning of the marketing strategy, or during a redesign, update, launch of a new product, change in pricing policy, etc. It is also important to have information about existing and potential customers, including demographics, behavior and psychographics.
There is no real “best way to do it”. However, at Twilead, we support the method of using your existing customer portfolio to build your Buyer Personas. We explain…
Step 1: Analyze your “best” customers
Your “best” customers may be the accounts with which you do the most business, or with which you are the most profitable, for example. So start by analyzing them in detail to identify their commonalities. If necessary, you can interview them to better understand their expectations, their aspirations, their fears, but also to better understand their verbatim and their buying behavior.
This will allow you to define the typical profile of your best customers. For example, if you are a project management software company, you may identify that your best customers are mid-sized construction companies with large project teams and a substantial budget for project management tools.
Step 2: Identify relevant market segments
This step completes the previous one, especially if your company does not have a developed customer portfolio or if it does not really have an effective ideal customer. The idea here is to analyze your market to identify relevant segments.
You can use tools like market segmentation matrices (market size, growth, maturity, etc.). Once you have identified these segments, you can use the information gathered from the analysis of your best customers (or external data) to determine the common characteristics of these segments and thus define the typical profiles of your Buyer Personas.
For example, if you have identified that construction companies are an important segment for your company, you can develop a Buyer Persona such as “Construction Project Manager”, using the framework of our examples. Here is how to collect the necessary data:
1. Analysis of existing data: You can use the demographic, behavioral and psychographic data you have collected on your best customers to identify the common characteristics of this market segment;
2. Interviews with your sales representatives: as long as they are in regular contact with this type of Persona, your sales representatives will provide you with practical and actionable information;
3. Online research: you can use social networks, discussion forums and blogs to gather information about the needs, motivations and buying behaviors of your potential customers.
4. MarketTrend Analysis: You can use market analysis tools to understand emerging trends and needs in the construction industry and identify opportunities for your business;
5. Use a specialized firm, if this segment is truly strategic for your business performance.
Step 3: Validate the Buyer Personas with internal teams
Without necessarily seeking unanimity, it is important to validate your Buyer Personas with the marketing and sales teams in order to generate support and motivate the troops for the next steps. Some companies go further, soliciting input from long-time customers to lock in Buyer Personas.
It is important to note that the validation of Buyer Personas should not be a one-time activity, especially in a context where buying behavior is changing. It is a regular and iterative activity. Don’t make the mistake of defining Buyer Personas and relying on them for several years.
Step 4: Use your Buyer Personas in your sales and marketing strategy
Once your Buyer Personas have been validated, use them in a transversal way in all aspects of your sales and marketing strategy. Here are some examples:
– Targeting advertising and marketing campaigns to the interests and needs of target personas;
– Improve the user experience on the website and app;
– Develop or adapt product and service offerings;
– Identify the most effective communication channels to reach the target personas;
– Improve content writing to better engage the target audience;
– Identify business opportunities by targeting the most promising market segments;
– Improve relationships with existing customers in light of new information about their expectations and aspirations.
