Buyer Persona Canvas

Sep 2015

The Influence Of Buyer Goals On Content And The Search For Good Ideas

One of the most under-realized areas of understanding in marketing today has to do with the powerful influences of buyer goals and their goal-directed behaviors. This is especially true in B2B marketing. Most notably, in terms of understanding the impact of buyer goals on how buyers conduct informational searches, as well as, gather content and make choices based on the information acquired. The ongoing concern for many senior marketing executives is the lack of effectiveness in content marketing today. Surveys in the past two to three years indicating marketers are struggling to break through even being thirty to forty percent “somewhat”…

Article by Tony Zambito

Jul 2015

Looking At The World Through The Eyes Of Your Buyers

One of my favorite visits as a young person was to the House Of Mirrors at the amusement park. It fascinated me how the mirrors distorted the way we looked and how they reshaped our faces. Having fun with facial and body gestures to make myself look even more different. Companies today, if not intent on understanding their buyers, can fall victim to their own House Of Mirrors. Having a very distorted view of buyers than that of reality. The buyer becoming a reshaped reflection of the way people internally view and think about customers. Corporate-Referential View Of Buyers Corporations…

Article by Tony Zambito

Mar 2015

Does Your Buyer Persona Sound Like A Corporate Talking Machine?

Targets. Initiatives. Objectives. Analysis. Risks. Operations. Industry. Priorities. KPI. Success. Entry. Barriers. Products. Triggers. Requirements. Solutions. Markets. Criteria. Process. Profile. What do these words have in common? They are words you are most likely to see in corporate and company documents related to strategies or tactics of a corporation or private company. They are often found in the confusing array of marketing or sales strategy and planning language. Whereby strategy, planning, objectives and targets somehow get melded into one in the same without any real distinction. Confusion: Company Profile Vs. Buyer Persona One mistaken method related to buyer personas has…

Article by Tony Zambito

Mar 2015

Use Buyer Personas To Align Marketing With Business Growth Strategies

On the minds of many CEOs for this year and beyond is making business growth a top priority. From the likes of surveys by IBM and Gartner to surveys by the multitude of research firms across the globe, the one consistent driver identified by CEOs is that of business growth. Coming out of the doldrums of the near global economic meltdown beginning in 2008, businesses are bent on growing. Alignment is a tricky word. For marketers, it has meant gravitating towards the inevitable arguing on about tactical marketing and sales alignment. Where their eyes should gaze is towards aligning with…

Article by Tony Zambito

Feb 2015

Stop Business Speak And Simplify Insights To Achieve Customer Centricity

Many executives today are struggling in two areas. One is in formulating strategies designed to help their organization stand out in a crowded field. The second is in creating an enterprise adept with deep customer insights and understanding, which translates into obsessed customer focus. When struggling in these two areas, executives and their organizations can find themselves in a turbulent whirlpool dragging them and their customers into further states of confusion. Wrapped In A State Of Business Speak Depending on the circumstances and the people involved, you sometimes wonder if people are wired with a switch in their brains to…

Article by Tony Zambito

Dec 2014

Beyond Predictive Marketing: Planning With Persona-Based Strategic Narratives

In a recent interview, one of the world’s most compelling management consultant, Tom Peters, responded to a question related to what is missing from today’s discussion about management. In classic as well as vintage Tom Peter fashion, he responded: “My real bottom-line hypothesis is that nobody has a sweet clue what they’re doing.” He went on to say we, in business, should be trying things out at an insanely rapid pace as a result. It is fair to say in the world of marketing, what has been taking place is trying things out at a rapid clip. One of those things…

Article by Tony Zambito

Jul 2014

5 Reasons For Poor Buyer Personas Steering Marketing In The Wrong Direction

This July marks the 13th year since the first drafting of the concept and methodology of buyer persona development. Notably, in the last three years, we have seen an increase in awareness of buyer personas. Coinciding with the rise in content marketing, marketers seek to use buyer personas to help guide content strategies and tactics. With this rise in awareness also come pitfalls in having buyer personas steer marketing efforts in the wrong direction. I raise this point due to the proliferation of content on buyer personas over the past few years. Some helpful but the majority, in my opinion,…

Article by Tony Zambito

Dec 2013

CMO 2014: 4 Steps To Rediscovering B2B Brand Equity

Having an instantly recognizable brand is the aim of many Chief Marketing Officers and marketing leaders. It is one of the most elusive trophies to grab in the world of B2B. Once achieved, there are tremendous advantages. Gaining such an advantage has become harder to achieve as companies struggle to be heard above the loud din of digital media. The art of building brand equity may have been lost in the digital shuffle taking place in the B2B space the past few years. It is an art companies can ill-afford to lose. With more options available to buyers today, loyalty…

Article by Tony Zambito

Oct 2013

7 Criteria To Ensure Doing The Right Things For Buyer Personas

When we put time, resources, and money into anything we do business-related, it is natural to seek value in return. Value comes from understanding what are the right things to get done. How to ensure investment in buyer insight research and buyer persona development adds value is one question I get asked frequently. Doing The Right Things To get the most value out of investments, business leaders have to look beyond style or hype and look at the substance. Using evaluative criteria to determine if they are making as well as have made the right choices. This is usually the…

Article by Tony Zambito

Oct 2013

6 Reasons Why Buyer Personas Are More Important Than Ever

Alan Cooper first introduced the concept of user personas in 1999 to help inform design strategy, of which I was privileged to witness first-hand. This was important then since user-friendly digital products and services were lacking. Challenges on how to make the web user-friendlier were a pressing problem back then as well. In 2002, I began a focus on buyer personas to address the changes in buying behaviors beginning to occur. The focus shifted to informing customer strategies, which best fit, the goals of buyers. The Question The question I get asked occasionally when helping people is this: after a…

Article by Tony Zambito