CSO | Tony Zambito Founder of Buyer Personas and Buyer Insights Research

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Confusing Customer Segmentation, Buyer Profiling, and Buyer Personas Harms Marketing

In the 15 years since originating the concept of buyer personas in 2001, there has been one issue that continues to plague fully understanding exactly where, how, and why buyer personas can be beneficial. Compounding the issue today is the prevalent use of the term buyer persona to describe customer segmentation and buyer profiling efforts. The issue I am referring to is the confusion that can surround distinguishing between customer segmentation, buyer profiling, and buyer personas today. If you are a CMO or a marketer and you find yourself having a sudden realization that perhaps you are not quite sure…

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Buyer Decisions Are Not What You Think

When marketing and sales leaders often think about how buyers make decisions, they are viewed through a prism of buyers making rational and process-driven decisions. Leading to many strategies and tactics devoted to attempts to market or sell to the rationale behind decisions and buying processes. Of late, the term “buyer’s journey” has come into vogue. Essentially another name for mapping the buying process. It is yet another example, however, of the search to understand the process of decision-making. There is a significant problem with this prevalent perspective that exists in the world of marketing and sales: humans, thus buyers,…

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State Of Buyer Personas 2016 Survey

This has been an eventful year. We are seeing continued growth in the adoption of buyer personas as a means for understanding buyers and customers. At the same time, the growth is fraught with the perils of buyer personas being misunderstood, mislabeled, and serving as a cover for basic buyer profiling. Each year, since originating the concept of buyer personas in 2001-2002, I have reflected and offered a perspective on the state of buyer personas. As in last year, I wish to incorporate the use of a survey to offer a comprehensive view of the state of buyer personas. This…

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What CMOs Need To Know About Listening To The Customer

It is a generally accepted notion that listening is vital to having positive and healthy interpersonal relationships. Listening is an essential skill for leaders in business, politics, sports, and in many different aspects of culture and society. As a country, we have had many leaders rise to the occasion upon their ability to listen and connect with people and their causes. For CMOs today, listening to customers has become one of the key ingredients shaping their success in connecting brands with customers. Expanding the growth of their customer base is predicated, to a high degree, on having listening be an active…

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The Importance of Understanding Context Before Jumping To Solutions

We cannot wait to offer solutions. We have the thirty-second elevator pitch, content marketing, presentations, lead generation, demand generation, sales training, and sales enablement. All designed to be proficient at offering solutions. Some companies can reach a fervent pitch with their marketing and sales in seeking to tell people or companies they have the solution. Sometimes we rush to provide a solution while at other times, we work on an effort with a potential customer crafting a solution over many months. What we can be convinced of is belief we have the right solution. Just what if? What if the…

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D.I.V.E. Deeper: Getting The Most Out Of Your Buyer Personas

To get the most out of anything worthwhile takes persistence, perseverance, hard work, intuitiveness, and grit. It is advice we offer to our friends, family, and children. Often in helpful conversations with marketing and sales leaders, I usually am posed the question of how to get the most out of buyer personas. A common theme is many have invested in buyer personas but are not reaping perceived benefits. It is a perplexing dilemma for executives who have sponsored such efforts. Much of the disappointment comes from not attaining new revelations about buyers or as one executive put it to me…

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Understanding Who Your Buyers Are Is Not Enough

“We need to know who our buyers are.” I hear this often today. From Chief Executive Officers, Chief Marketing Officers, Chief Operating Officers, and Chief Sales Officers, the confounding question of – Who are our buyers? – is asked repeatedly. Even in mature established B2B businesses, this question is often asked. In fact, more mature B2B organizations run the risk of realizing too late they have moved distantly away from their buyers. Like the frog that realizes much too late the water has reached boiling temperature. Guess Who As I have helped many B2B organizations in the past 15 years…

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Does Your Buyer Persona Look Like A Sales Call Plan?

When she blurted it out, it was so on the mark, I just sat there in silence for a few seconds. We have all had those moments. Those moments when we think – “why haven’t I thought of that before?” I was engaged in a helpful conversation with an Inc. 500 head of sales in response to my article pointing out the differences between buyer profiling and buyer personas. For this individual, the article hit a nerve. Here is what she had to say: “We were approached by marketing to share in a budget for building buyer personas. So when…

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How The C-Suite Can Discover Rich Buyer Insights Through Buyer Stories

CEO’s and their C-Suite teams are mired in quantitative data analysis. Trying to make sense out of dollars and cents. Uncertainty reigns on how to shape future company strategic direction. Frustration exists with research consisting of surveys and data analytics only providing a snapshot of customer and market realities. Recent customer profiling efforts only telling senior executives what they already know. Sound familiar? Given the amount of technological changes impacting buyer behaviors in the past decade, this is the likely state of affairs in many B2B corporate environments. Frustration Many executives today in marketing, sales, strategy, and operations are frustrated…

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Walk A Mile In Your Buyer’s Shoes With B2B Buyer Ethnography

It began, as history can best record, as a proverb of the Native American Cherokee tribe. Which said, “do not judge a man until you have walked a mile in his shoes.” This proverb had been rephrased, reshaped, and reworded many times as a way to communicate. What matters though, is the truth of this proverb. To truly know someone, you must walk a mile in his or her shoes. Increasingly today, B2B buying decisions are heavily weighted towards perceptions about a brand’s promise and experience. Oftentimes, gaining clues about buyer perceptions and experiences with a brand is not an…

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