A buyer persona is a representation of your ideal customer based on market research and gathered data on existing customers. When done properly, it can help your B2B to better understand its audience—including its needs, motivations, and buying hesitancies.
Knowing these factors helps marketers to create tailored and more compelling marketing content and campaigns. In fact, 90 percent of companies using buyer personas say they have been able to obtain a clearer understanding of who their buyers are.
Importantly, buyer personas aren’t just useful for marketing decisions. They can also help to inform product development and improve customer service.
B2B Personas Are More Complex Than B2C
While B2C purchases are typically made quickly because there’s much less at stake, the buy cycle for B2B purchases is longer since purchases are much larger, and careers could even be on the line.
Also, while B2C purchases are typically made by an individual consumer, B2B purchases tend to require input from more than one person. This means marketers should consider identifying multiple decision-makers and influencers within a company.
How To Create A B2B Buyer Persona
In addition to the aforementioned market research, interviews are conducted with a B2B’s customers to effectively “pick their brains.”
While such data could be gathered by questionnaire, one-on-one meetings or Zoom/phone interviews yield a much greater wealth of data, since they encourage openness and discovery. People tend to say less when they have to put it in writing. Plus, the interviewer can ask prompting or follow-up questions if they’re not getting the data they need.
Exactly what is asked during these interviews can vary by industry, product category, identified decision-maker, or any other special interests a B2B has. That being said, here are some general categories questions could fall into:
- Demographics — age, education level, geography, etc.
- Professional status — job title, responsibilities, decision-making status, budget limitations
- Needs — pain points faced most often in their jobs and biggest worries (a.k.a. the “what keeps you up at night” question)
- Buying Behavior — resources relied on when making purchases (e.g., peer references, online research) and biggest hesitancies about buying
- Motivations — checklist items needed to validate a purchase
Marketers use collective answers to these questions to generate a buyer persona or composite that reveals key characteristics and thought patterns, allowing them to target their marketing content and programs accordingly.
It’s true that creating a B2B buyer persona can require a lot of work—especially when more than one is needed. But consider this: Companies that exceed their lead and revenue goals are over twice as likely to create personas compared to companies that miss their goals.
Need help? Over the years, Carabiner Communications has helped numerous companies develop accurate buyer personas that have been used to lead marketing and sales initiatives for greater revenue. Give us a call today.