If you are like most marketers, your revenue goals have increased for 2020, but your budgets haven’t. Even if you are among the fortunate few with an increased budget to spend, you still need to show a return that ties to revenue.
So, as you sit down to plan for 2020, how do you start? Buyer Personas.
Achieving your revenue goals starts with understanding your buyers.
Let me say that again.
Achieving your revenue goals starts with understanding your buyers.
Why Buyer Personas Are Important
In short, buyer personas help define who the buyers are, what they care about, how they behave, why they buy, and where they get information. Buyer personas help answer questions like “what type of content do my clients prefer” and “what type of content will convert for me.” They help you understand the problems your clients are trying to solve and how big the problems are for them. It’s okay to start with sales reps to get their thoughts on the buyers, but you must speak with real clients to fill in any gaps and identify blind spots.
Key Step
Document your buyer personas. This step involves taking everything you’ve learned and operationalizing it to share with all parts of your company. And it doesn’t stop there. Understanding your buyers is an ongoing process, not a do it once deal. But there are also considerable payoffs to your revenue if done correctly.
According to an industry benchmark study by Cintell, 71% of companies that exceed revenue and lead goals have documented personas, and high-performing companies are 2.3 times more likely to research the drivers of their buyers than their competitors.
Click here to check out what a buyer persona template looks like.
Why Such Great Results?
Marketers that have done the headwork to research and document their buyers are in a better position to think differently, to think like their customers. In this B2Me world, business customers now have elevated presumptions at every interaction with your brand. They want and expect you to anticipate their needs, understand their challenges, and suggest solutions.
And your buyers want you to think differently, to think like them. You can’t do this unless you know them. In the State of the Connected Customer, Salesforce discovered that 89% of business buyers say they expect companies to understand their unique needs and expectations.
It’s the Age of the Customer
With never before known access to choices and the data and technology to make those choices, buyers are in control. The power has shifted from companies to people/buyers. It’s not about you. It’s about solving their pains/needs. This means you need to provide solutions and services, not products.
Customers want to be treated like humans, not numbers. And, even before purchase, personalization is hugely important, with 59% of customers saying that tailoring their engagement is very important to win their business. Again, you need to know who your buyer personas are.
Read my blog on developing Obsessive Customer Drive (OCD).
How to Get Started
Buyer personas must be based on research! Here’s how to get started:
- Interviews with customers and prospects
- Interviews with leadership team
- Interviews with sales
- On-line research such as Linkedin, Job boards
- Demographics
As you conduct your interviews, make sure to probe for:
- Their organizational goals & priorities
- Their biggest challenges and fears
- Their drivers
- What defines success for them
- Their role in the process
- How much of their day involves the “solution”
- Where do they get information
- What content are they interested in
- Your customer’s most important business goals and objectives
- How their executives think and how they make buying decisions
Here are the questions we start with when talking to Buyer Personas.
Headwork Before Footwork
Organic growth is vital for a company’s survival. The 2017 McKinsey study is still relevant for 2020. It revealed that for all levels of revenue growth, those with more organic growth generated higher shareholder returns. And, what do your CEO and Board of Directors care about the most? Shareholder returns.
To be the hero in 2020, Marketing needs to drive more revenue. That begins with doing the headwork and understanding your buyers before you start the footwork and kickoff planning and executing.
Need help with your Buyer Personas.
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