All B2B marketers would agree that it is important to develop a buyer persona and apply them in marketing strategy.
Learning to create B2B buyer personas is essential to build an effective marketing organization. A buyer persona is unique to each business and is a vital element while targeting and acquiring customers.
The best way to start strategizing any inbound marketing program is by defining a buyer persona. If implemented properly these buyer personas can create strong alignment across the organization departments.
To help you get started, here are the main steps you need to cover to develop the right B2B buyer persona in order to optimize your marketing result.
Collect the right data
It may look like for B2B marketers to ignore buyer persona but remember, buyer persona should always be based on accurate and relevant quantitative and qualitative data. Because the more you understand about who they are and what they want, the more you’ll be able to connect with them. Here are a few examples of the type of information to considered.
- Firmographic (average annual revenue, company size, number of employees, and goals, etc,.)
- Demographic (age, education, location, etc,.)
- Behavioral (known interests, preferred channel of communication, etc,.)
Identify pain points
Identify how you can help your customer, by understanding the biggest challenges your customer face, you can create campaigns that will provide a solution to these problems and educate them on how to overcome the problem.
For example, if your buyer persona faces the challenge of a lead generation, you can set up a lead nurturing workflow that presents relevant content and start working to overcome these challenges.
Understanding problem areas can help you create more targeted marketing tactics.
Add behavioral detail
You may work in a B2B industry where things are more professional and formal but that doesn’t mean you ignore the personal side of the things. When developing personas, add in details like hobbies, family, interests and other factors. Some other details include
- What medium do they prefer for consuming data?
- How do their work and personal lives intersect with their work lives?
- Their preferred medium to collect information.
- What type of style of content do they prefer?
Integrate your persona into your marketing effort
Incorporate developed buyer persona into your overall marketing strategy. On a regular basis refer your buyer personas in marketing and business development discussion.
Understanding your buyer personas is a great way to kick start sales. Your buyer persona should be full of details to be useful
According to your buyer persona, you can prioritize your sales outreach.
Once you have fully defined your buyer personas, effectively reach your buyer with relevant and engaging content to maximize the ROI of your content strategy.
With that step, we come to an end. These are those steps that you can apply throughout your B2B marketing efforts. But remember, organization structure change over time and so do people. Do review and validate your buyer persons from time to time to keep it relevant.
