How B2B marketers can gain full value from buyer personas

“Gaining full value from your buyer personas, assuming they are well developed and actionable to begin with, requires a well-organized approach to create and execute on persona-based content strategy and campaigns”, says Julie Schwartz, Senior Vice President Research and Thought Leadership, ITSMA.

What is a buyer persona?

A buyer persona is an example of a customer who represents a group of buyers. Buyer personas are defined by buyer behaviors such as solution triggers, success factors, evaluation process, and decision criteria. They are a resource that enables B2B companies to create messages and other content that resonate with the intended audience and prompt action.

Key takeaways

• Buyer profiles, based on demographics, roles, and pain points, are just a starting point for buyer personas that provide insight into real buying behavior. The most useful personas provide deep insight into when, how, and why people buy a particular solution.
• Beyond buyer personas themselves, organizations need to invest in value proposition and content development, training, tools, and process change.
• Putting personas to work in the field requires a serious investment in up-front strategy and development; focus first on mapping the buyer’s journey and defining content strategy.
• Effective campaigns demand outside-in messaging and content; get key marketing stakeholders involved in defining and refining value propositions to guide follow-on content.

Key quote

“Many marketers struggle to operationalize their buyer personas because their personas are, in actuality, role-based profiles that are heavy on demographics and pain points, but light on insight into actual buying behavior. Buyer profiles are just the starting point for buyer personas; effective personas take profiles to the next level with more useful purchase decision-specific insights”.