5 reasons why a buyer persona leads to more successful B2B marketing
There are a number of reasons why having a well-defined buyer persona contributes to the success of your business in the B2B market. A buyer persona is a complete picture of the person you are trying to engage with your marketing efforts and lead generation strategies. In B2B this can be someone from the C-level who takes the final decision to someone that uses the product. Or maybe someone from the middle-management that holds the budget.
Most of the time in B2B it is a combination of all these different stakeholders that you need to engage. This can be a complex job. In order to make content that is relevant and really specific for the buyer a B2B marketeer must really understand how the buyers think. This is where buyer personas come in.
A complete description of demographics, wants, needs, barriers and motivators for a specific buying group in the company. Let’s take a look at why having well-defined buyer personas can lead to more successful B2B marketing.
Increased content marketing results and quality
If you don’t know who your buyer is, it becomes very hard to create content for that buyer. It‘s like a pilot flying an airplane without radar. Eventually you will land somewhere but you can only guess where that somewhere will be. For content marketing to be effective, you need to know your who you are creating content for. Content marketing is more than just creating content.
Since a buyer persona results in a clear and well-defined picture of the buyer you will know what they need, think and want from their (potential) suppliers. This means that the content you create is more personalized and will provide a better experience for the target group.
Multiple studies point out that companies that provide a better buyer experience see an increase in leads against their peers. That don’t offer a great experience during the buyer journey. So having buyer personas will result in better content marketing results and better content quality.
B2B buyer persona leads to better segmentation
Email marketing is still one of the most used B2B marketing techniques. In fact, 93% of B2B marketeers make use of email marketing to engage with prospects, leads and existing clients. Having buyers personas helps you to segment the email lists you use to target specific groups. Emailing relevant content to a specific persona list will increase the relevancy of your company in the eyes of that buyer persona. You will be seen as a quality source of information because you ensure that they see the content relevant for them without having to search for it themselves.
When creating lists for email marketing purposes always try to be specific as possible. This process often starts with a good an structured CRM system that contains all the necessary data to create a great, segmented, email campaign.
More insight into the buying journey of your target group
By understanding how your B2B buyer persona thinks and what motivates him to do certain actions you can increase the timing of your content. If you know for example that 56% of his buying journey is already complete before he/she actually has contact with sales (like most B2B buying journeys), you can alter your content based on these insights. You could maybe first target the key-user who starts the research process and in a later phase target the manager who relies on the research already done by his team.
Well-timed content that comes at the right phase in the buyer journey establishes a sense of trust an domain expertise for your potential clients. You show that you really know what concerns them and help them every step of the way to a solution.
Buyer personas align sales and marketing
Too often sales and marketing departments have a different vision about prospects, leads and clients. While to goal of marketing is to work on brand awareness and lead generation, the goal of sales is to close those leads and sell the products or services. Although both departments work towards the same goal, the priorities are sometimes fundamentally different.
Buyer personas are a results of sales and marketing coming together and sharing their views on how a prospect or client looks like. Marketing may know that digital channels are important for prospect while sales could add that the time to quote is an important element that results in more sales. Writing out a buyer persona brings sales and marketing on the same line about who the target group is.
Future-proof guideline
It is becoming more common to hire freelancers and external contractors that help out the company with specific tasks. Not everything can be done ‘in-house’ and sales and marketing are often supported by different third parties. Following up on the previous point, buyer personas can be a great guideline for all third parties and new hires that come in the company at a later stage.
Instead of figuring out who the client is and what they need , a written buyer persona makes sure that new parties are on the same line. So they can get up to speed as quick as possible. This improves efficiency and saves time in future work. Download a free b2b buyer persona template .
Increased online and offline user experience
According to Hubspot using marketing personas made websites 2 – 5 times more effective and easier to use by targeted users. After reading all above reasons it’s clear that having buyer personas can really increase your sales leads you get from online and offline channels.
Not only your content but also your advertisements, events, sales calls and even market research benefit from having clear B2B buyer personas. Offering the content your target group wants when they need it and where they need it results in a better buying experience.
There is no doubt that they will like your company more for the efforts you have done especially for them. They may not buy right now, but in the future your company will be top of mind when deciding for a (new) supplier.
Where do you start?
We listed some of the reasons why a B2B buyer persona can increase your marketing success. This makes clear that buyer personas are a key element in your B2B marketing strategy. Need help in creating these buyer personas?
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