Why defining a B2B buyer persona will boost conversions, (FREE Template)
Before you read this article I want you to empty your mind of every thought and idea around who you actually think your customers are and why they purchase from your business.
Good, now you’ve done that we can start by explaining how your company can begin to profile their ideal customer, by creating a digital b2b buyer persona examples.
What is a buyer persona?
A persona is a fictional profile we create of your ideal customer. By using information you gather about your market and the types of people that buy from you, it is possible to create detailed profiles of the types of customers you want and will be dealing with. If you understand their decision process, ambitions, problems and priorities throughout the whole awareness, consideration and decision stages, you can create detailed b2b content marketing strategies that will engage with them.
The more detailed you make your persona, the better!
Why is creating a buyer persona so important in digital marketing?
Creating detailed customer profiles as fictional personas, allows you to market your business efficiently and effectively so you can engage with your customers.
It allows you to understand how your customers search for information around the services and products your business offers. What motivates and drives them to make certain decisions? What lifestyle choices do they make? Do they engage on social media? What daily challenges do they face in their job role? How can you aid in their daily challenges? These are just a few of the questions you will be asking when creating a persona for your ideal customers.
Why are buyer personas useful for your business?
Remember when you started your business or you just landed the job you wanted, you then wanted to increase profit, leads and sales? Personas give you a focal point to create a detailed digital strategy. Business owners and professionals understand they need to increase profit, leads and sales, but they don't always start in the correct way.
Many business owners and marketing professionals will just decide to spend money on Google Adwords, SEO or social media marketing, with no clear strategy as to who they are trying to target. In the end you just end up spending money trying to sell the services your business offers, when you should be educating and informing your potential customers to generate high quality leads.
Personas allow you to understand your market, help you focus the right type of content for the correct audience and increase conversion rates.
Personas are the focal point of any successful digital strategy.
Understanding your audience and industry
Remember, take yourself as an example, when you’re searching for something on the internet, you will almost always go through an awareness stage before you make any consideration of who you may want to work with or buy from, this applies to your customers also. If you understand your industry and who you’re potential customers are, you can create engaging content that will allow them to become more informed about the problem they are trying to solve and they will see you as the expert.
Gaining the trust of potential customers will almost certainly increase the probability they will start to have dialog with your company.
For example:
Let’s say a marketing executive at a textile manufacturing company can see an opportunity in their industry for organically made textiles and needs to profile his/her customer, so they can increase brand awareness, leads and sales.
You would give them a fictional name like ‘Interior Designer Denise’ and her main problem is sourcing UK based textiles that are made with organic materials. Even by using just this very basic profile we would be able to develop specific content that would aid ‘Interior Designer Denise’ in the awareness stage of her purchasing journey. She would then start to see the textile company as a leader in solving the problem she has.
Creating several personas allows you to segment your marketing activities for greater conversions
Improve your conversion rates with a b2b buyer persona
Investing time and researching into who your ideal customers are, what their motivations are and how they find solutions to their problems, will help you improve your conversions, create content that connects directly with the customer and deliver b2b lead generation ideas, that allow you to collect important data.
By creating engaging content that is specific to your potential clients, they will be more willing to listen to the message you are delivering and exchange their contact details for industry insights you are offering.
Remember, for an effective digital strategy you will create several personas, so give a broad spectrum of ideal and potential clients you would like to deal with.
This method of digital marketing is becoming more and more popular, is used by large and small businesses and is an effective method for collecting data about your customers and analysing what they do and don’t like, which in turn allows for a long-term marketing plan.
Some statistics about companies that use personas
Buyer persona examples
When you're looking to develop a buyer persona for your business, many marketers may ask the question, 'How many buyer personas should my business have?' Well, the answer is as many as you need, you need to create a persona for every type of customer your business deals with. By doing this you can focus your content marketing strategy and understand your target audiences questions, wants and needs.
Here we have created some example buyer personas:
Buyer Persona Example #1
Name:
Customer Accounts Manager DeborahRoles:
Customer Accounts Manager, Book Enthusiast, Social Media Savvy, Technology Whizz.Goals:
Ensuring all customers are satisfied with the level of service and products provided by her organisation.Challenges:
The company is undergoing restructuring, cost reductions and effeciency audits once per year, plus she is looking at ways to streamline processes.Age:
26 - 37Income:
£32,000Education:
High SchoolLocation:
Urban, North-East EnglandStory:
Customer Accounts Manager Deborah is overseeing between 200 and 300 accounts in her current role situated within the North-East of England.Deborah is married with no children and enjoys spending time with family and friends.
She lives in the North-East of England and commutes into Leeds City Centre on a daily basis for work.
The company Deborah works for, employs 64 members of staff, however in recent months, the company has undergone restructuring and implemented a strategy of cost reduction.
Deborah works in a team of 7 individuals and covers all customer accounts in the UK and Ireland. Deborah is the senior member of the team, she reports directly to the Financial Director.
The majority of the companies existing business has been built upon reputation and referrals, and they are currently undergoing a major marketing campaign to boost awareness.
Whilst the company has seen steady growth over the past 2 years, the number of invoices she is creating has increased and are currently being completed by a credit control team who are exceedingly busy. In the past 6 months, the credit control team have undergone significant cost reduction and payments are being missed on a regular interval.
Deborah has had numerous complaints from her customers advising of either no payment being taken at all or a larger amount being collected from their bank account. Deborah has become increasingly frustrated with this and as such, is currently in the process of researching payment processing companies to present this to the Finance Director.
Deborah is a user of LinkedIn and Facebook and has seen some insights on how to streamline payment processes within the business. She is beginning to research companies using Google, Facebook and LinkedIn.
Buyer Persona Example #2
Name:
Financial Controller JoannaRoles:
Financial Controller, Social Media Savvy, Internet Whizz.Goals:
Ensuring all of the accounting activities for the business are up-to-date and accurate.Challenges:
Time is being spent chasing late payments, attention is being diverted away from accounting time.Age:
28 - 40Income:
£48,000 +Education:
University EducatedLocation:
Urban, South-WestStory:
Financial Controller Joanna oversees the accounts department for a large technology organisation. Joanna is the financial controller and has 2 subordinate managers that oversee the accounting department.Joanna is married with 3 children and enjoys spending time with her family, but also enjoys problem solving.
Joanna lives in the South-West and frequently travels to other sites within London. Joanna is a very hands-on Financial controller and likes to keep control of the companies accounting.
Joanna has recently been reviewing the accounts for the company and has noticed an increase the number of accounts payable. In the last board meeting, Joanna was asked specifically on this and has been tasked with fnding a cost effective solution and streamlined process.
Joanna is very active on social media and frequently interacts with other businesses who are using payment processing companies. Joanna would like to streamline her department and is looking to outsource the payment processing of the business to an external provider. Joanna is very cautious when it concerns the finances of the business and has received recommendations from various other financial controllers. She has also seen a few blog articles on social media that outline the benefits of using payment processing companies however she is concerned with the cost per transaction.
From previous experience, Joanna knows that streamlining her department and outsourcing payment processing can speed up the process and can also let the business focus on other important areas, owing to the business goals being growth for the years ahead.
What to do next with your b2b buyer personas?
As you start to detail your buyer personas like the examples above, you can start to identify content opportunities that will relate to them at the awareness stage of their journey.
For example, if we were trying to attract 'Financial Controller Joanna' into our marketing funnel, we might title a piece of content 'Family vs Work, how to streamline the financial structure of your business for that work-life balance'.
This way, you are identifying that she has a family and is looking to streamline her financial processes at work.
You can see that this piece of content would resonate with 'Financial Controller Joanna' before 'Accounts Manager Deborah, as she is single!
By developing your buyer personas in this detailed way, your content marketing will have greater success as you push people down your marketing funnel.
Never assume you know your ideal customers!
For many marketing executives and business owners there can be a tendency to try and fast track creating your buyer personas to start creating your marketing campaign quickly!
STOP!
You should never assume you know who you are trying to market to. There are many ways you can develop a profile of your businesses ideal customers and the buyer's journey they intend to take to purchase your service or products.
Ask your existing customers what their decision process was and how they researched your services, create a survey and ask your intended customers to complete this to see where their pain points are and how you can address them. Most of all you should avoid the clichés of guessing your buyer personas, real data always wins.
Pro tip: All successful marketing starts with buyer personas
