Defining key buyer personas and tailoring your approach to them
By Eve Kelly, Marketing Executive at Accelera
There are two key aspects to running a successful marketing strategy. You need to understand your audience and personalise the sales approach to them.
When it comes to B2B sales, the target is typically a buying committee. Committees looking into complex B2B purchases could have as many as 23 members, but generally have 4 or 5. That’s a lot of people your company needs to resonate with. Understanding different types of customers is going to be key in ensuring your approach speaks to everyone involved in the buying process.
Each stakeholder plays a unique role in shaping the purchasing decision. They have varying concerns and pain points.
For example, the technical buyer may focus on security. On the other hand, the end user may be more concerned with functionality. Hence, if you can identify the key buyer personas, you can structure your content to be relevant to them.
Here, we’ll talk you through buyer persona development, how to tailor your marketing strategy to them and how to personalise your campaigns.
Using Intent Data to Identify Buyer Personas and Buying Stages
In today’s market, you need to go beyond demographics for buyer persona development. According to Gartner, businesses leveraging intent data are twice as likely to achieve a 10% conversion rate.
To begin with there’s the intent data you own. You can find this in your customer relationship management (CRM) system, marketing automation platform (MAP), etc. This is also where third-party intent data will come in handy.
After all, the time a buyer spends on your website is only a fraction of their overall online research. Market research shows that buyers often conduct up to 70% of independent research before engaging with a B2B sales representative. So if you can get an insight into any of that 70%, it’ll set you apart in your outreach approach towards a prospective customers. This first step is crucial to understanding where they are in their buying decision.
Finding data is simple enough – how do you put it to work?
Defining Buyer Personas
Creating effective buyer personas is a systematic yet creative process. After all, buyer personas are semi-fictional characters that represent your customer. To understand the process, let’s consider making a technical buyer persona.
Begin with collecting demographic information. This includes job title, department, decision making role, age, location, etc. In the case of a SaaS product, let’s say you’re looking at an IT manager. They’re in their mid-30s and working in a mid-sized company.
Next, try to understand what challenges they face and what they are trying to achieve. Identify the values that seem to drive their decisions.
In this case, the buyer may have a limited budget within which he wants to find a way to make the system more efficient. Assess potential deal breakers too – to be accepted, your solution may have to comply with industry-specific regulations.
You can also use third-party intent data to identify their preferred content and communication channels. Understanding their buying process at a deeper level like this ensures your marketing messages resonate with their specific needs for this detailed buyer persona.
After you’ve used all this information to build their profile, you can then work with the sales team to tailor a B2B sales strategy for this detailed buyer persona.
Mapping Buyer Journeys
To engage effectively with buyers, you also need to know their position in your sales funnel. Here, third-party intent data may give you more information than the data you own. For example, let’s say you are trying to identify a buyer’s position in the sales funnel for data verification software.
Here’s how Google search keywords could indicate the buyer’s position.
Buyer position in the sales funnel
Google search keywords
Awareness stage
Why data verification matters
Data quality solutions
Decision-making stage
Data verification software pricing
Data verification software reviews
You can now move on to tailoring content to attract their attention.
Tailoring Marketing Strategies to Key Buyer Personas
Marketers often miss out on opportunities by selling their products to only one team. However, to make a purchase, all the members must reach a unanimous decision.
Tailoring your marketing strategy to the different buyer personas maximises brand visibility and forges a direct connection with each one. In turn, this increases the chances of conversion.
A good start is to create unique value propositions. This should highlight aspects of your product or service that address the buyer’s pain points. Rather than create new content from scratch, you can repurpose existing content with this kind of specific messaging.
For example, an article emphasising compliance and data protection can appeal to IT directors. On the other hand, Marketing Managers are more likely to click on links highlighting the product’s user-friendly interface.
You can also choose communication platforms and formats based on the buyer persona research. Developers may favour technical hubs while C-suite executives are more likely to see LinkedIn Ads.
Next, you need to map your content to the buyer’s position in the sales funnel. How-to videos and thought leadership content are good ways to align with buyers at the awareness stage. On the other hand, you can establish credibility at the decision-making stage with proof of ROI, customer testimonials, etc. Different personas require different messaging and formats to ensure your marketing efforts are well-targeted.
Here’s a quick guide to tailoring content to the different buying stages.
Brand building messages
Step-by-step guides
Research infographics
How-to videos
Industry benchmarks
Top of the funnel
Case studies
Product videos
Examples of product solutions
Product roadmaps
Middle of the funnel
Deal closing messages
Sales engagement
Testimonials
Product demonstrations
Proof of ROI
Bottom of the funnel
Integration of Personalisation in Campaigns
89% of marketers report a positive ROI by personalising marketing campaigns. That's not all. Personalising campaigns also builds trust and strengthens buyer relationships. There are many ways to personalise campaigns.
Digital Advertisements
Digital advertisements can be personalised according to the buyer’s location, type of device, bookmarks, previous searches, pages visited, and so on. They should also address the specific pain points identified for each detailed profile of a buyer persona. This allows you to speak directly to the needs of potential customers.
Personalisation isn’t just about content, design and format matters too. For example, a storytelling format may work well with a person who thinks creatively. But, a busy marketing manager may prefer reading a bullet-point list. This different approach ensures that your content will speak to different needs of individuals.
Landing Pages
You can personalise landing pages by matching the headline, font, design, colour schemes and call-to-action buttons to user persons. For example, you can create industry-specific landing pages for startups, small businesses, mid-sized businesses and large businesses.
Dynamic Content
Automation is a great tool for marketing campaigns. You can leverage this technology to personalise content displayed to site visitors based on their previous interactions. For example, visitors returning to a website may be shown content connected to an e-book they downloaded earlier. Similarly, visiting the pricing page a few times may trigger an automated follow-up email offering a product demonstration.
Recommendations
Product and content recommendations are another way to personalise the buyer’s journey through your sales funnel. Data points and insights play an important role here. You can use them to recommend additional resources and relevant material so the buyer sees your product as the ideal solution.
For example, if a buyer reads an article on data security, you could recommend a case study on how your product helped a client secure their data.
The Role of Data-Driven Insights
Research shows that B2B customers value personalisation much more than B2C customers. For example, 59% of B2B customers expect personalised experiences while researching a company’s products and services. For B2C customers, this figure is only 30%. Data-driven insights help meet these expectations through conducting both qualitative and quantitative research.
In addition to using intent data to identify buyer personas, data can be used to monitor and optimise your marketing strategy. Here are a few ways you can use data to improve your marketing efforts.
Update Buyer Personas
Buying committees and buyer personas are not set in stone. Using fresh data to update buyer personas is a great way to ensure they stay relevant. You could use customer feedback, sales insights or conduct surveys for buyer persona development.
Optimise Targeting
Fresh data can also help you identify your target audience. You can identify different buyer personas and target personas most likely to need your product or service. This is especially important when you’re working with limited resources.
You can also use data for comprehensive lead scoring. It helps identify leads that show interest in your content and, in turn, leads more likely to convert. This maximises the impact of your B2B sales strategy and improves efficiency.
Refine Content
Metrics such as open rates, page views, sales funnel progression and interaction depth play an important role in assessing content. Seeing how buyers interact with your content helps identify opportunities for improvement.
Use these insights to make targeted adjustments. What’s more, you can leverage A/B testing to evaluate the effect of these changes. Fine-tuning your content in this way ensures that you stay aligned with the evolving needs of your target audience.
Summing It Up
Well-defined buyer personas and tailored content lay the foundation for successful B2B marketing campaigns. This requires data. Relying only on data collected by your company may give you an incomplete view.
At Accelera, we make it our business to know how to complement your data with third-party data for more comprehensive buyer persona development. These insights paired with campaign analytics help businesses guide buyers through the sales funnel.
Through targeted content syndication campaigns, you can position your content as a solution to the buyer’s pain points and thus, make it relevant to them.
Want to know more about leveraging intent data to guide buyers through your sales funnel? Connect with us today.