“Buyer personas: Gain deeper insight into customer purchasing decisions” provides tools, techniques, and real-world case studies to help executives win more business. Authors Jim Kraus and Adele Revella are experienced marketers and the president and founder of the Buyer Persona Institute, respectively.
This book is available in digital version ($17) or hardcover print version ($23.80). wileypublisher, or Amazon.
Below are edited excerpts.
Marketer as an expert
No one questions the assumption that finance teams are the best at keeping the books, or that engineering is the most knowledgeable about building useful products. But marketing tends to be a playground for everyone.
Buyer personas, revised and expanded
Once marketers are recognized as experts, they should be given similar authority to influence decisions that affect buyers. When it comes to market expansion and product expansion, the buyer’s perspective is the most important factor that determines success or failure. There is an insight buying vacuum within most companies. Marketers need to own that ability.
In meetings where buyer input is important, say, “We’ve been listening to buyers and here’s what they think.” or “We’ve been interviewing buyers. Be sure to start the sentence with “I said I wanted to.” . . ”
Statements like this can raise questions about how recently you spoke with the buyer, so be prepared to back up your comments. We recommend conducting interviews at least once a month.
However, in practice, purchase insights rarely change, and when they do, additional interviews may be required. That’s because the main triggers for these changes are usually big news, such as significant upturns or downturns in economic conditions, or mergers or divestitures by important companies. competitoror new regulations requiring consumers to invest in solutions like Organization. Major technological advancements and security issues are also factors that influence purchasing insights. If any of these occur, consider another round of interviews to understand the situation. your buyer mindset It may be off.
Communication with the team
When buyers describe your product, they’ll learn about things other than marketing that influence their purchasing decisions.
Perhaps the product is not integrated with your particular network or infrastructure. It probably won’t produce the kind of reports you want.
Be careful with these findings. Keep in mind that the main goal is to get guidance on changes to improve your marketing efforts.
For example, if your buyers consistently have the same misperceptions about your product, the first step is to recognize the problem and invest in marketing efforts to debunk those misperceptions. If it’s important, make it an important message on your website or e-book. Reinforces the need for sales teams to highlight their capabilities.
But once you gain internal support for the value, buyer personacommunicates product-related findings to the development team and sales-related issues to management.
