Creating B2B buyer personas will strengthen your
marketing strategy because they allow you to understand your target audience and build lasting relationships. Personas can help your business in a variety of ways, from developing
content that resonates with your ideal buyer to setting up
pay-per-click campaigns with laser-focused targeting.
Here’s what you need to know about buyer personas and important elements to include in yours to provide the most benefit to your B2B marketing strategy.
What is a Buyer Persona?
A ‘buyer persona’ is a semi-fictional character that represents your buyers’ most common characteristics. It includes demographic information as well as other unique qualities like their interests, goals, frustrations, and more. Essentially, a buyer persona humanizes your audience. This allows for more empathic messaging that makes prospects and current customers feel like you’re speaking directly to them.
Researching Your Personas
There are many ways to gather information to develop a robust buyer persona.
Analytics is a good starting point as you can get a high-level overview of your website visitors’ age, gender, and interest categories. You can also review which content,
email, ads, and other marketing campaigns have performed well with your audience to see what engages their attention and drives conversions.
For deeper insights, surveys and interviews are great ways to go. Find out what your buyers really want and need directly from them instead of making educated guests or assumptions. You may need to offer an incentive to generate enough responses to be able to glean insights, however, it can be worth it to truly understand your buyers.
Lastly, it’s helpful to create at least a couple of personas since your B2B buyers probably come from different industries or verticals. However, you shouldn’t create too many personas either because your targeting will be too broad.
Basics of a B2B Buyer Persona
A quick Google search of ‘buyer persona’ shows that there are many different formats. Some are more detailed than others, but most of them share these basic elements.
Demographics
This is general information like age, gender, location, and income. It can be a bit tricky determining their income since that’s not something you can see in analytics and buyers might not feel comfortable sharing, but an average salary based on their profession will do.
Personal Background
Bring your persona to life by giving them a name and including personal background information like their job title, education level, hobbies, interests, and family situation (e.g. single, married, kids).
Motivators and Goals
Everybody is motivated by something. Your buyers are no different! When you understand what drives your buyers, you’ll be able to align your product or service toward their goals.
Fears and Challenges
Big or small, there are roadblocks that get in your buyer’s way. By identifying their pain points, you’ll be able to build empathy with your buyer. Additionally, it’ll be easier to improve your offering so your buyer can overcome those fears and challenges.
Your Solution
Explain how your product or service provides a solution to your persona. What are the specific benefits that help them achieve their goal or overcome a challenge? Although you help all of your buyers, the way you help them will vary depending on their unique needs and wants.
Leverage Personas in Your B2B Digital Marketing
Buyer personas offer numerous benefits to digital marketing such as more effective targeting, higher engagement, consistent messaging, and more. In addition to marketing, personas can improve your
sales team’s interactions with prospects and buyers, leading to more closed deals. Start leveraging B2B buyer personas in your business to take your digital marketing to the next level!