Tag Archives: Ideal Buyer Persona

The Missing Link Between Business, Marketing, And Customer Strategy: Buyer Personas

One significant change in the past few years is the top of mind presence of the customer on the part of CEOs. The mandate of “getting closer to the customer” has never been stronger. Various surveys point to CEOs linking business growth to increasing customer engagement efforts, growing their customer base, and improving customer retention. With existing customers and prospective buyers metamorphosing into more digitally inclined buyers, organizations are faced with uncertainty about who represents their buyers. Causing CEOs and the C-Suite to ponder how they should align their overall business strategies with customer strategies. Linking business growth strategies to…

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6 Advanced Best Practices in Buyer Personas Propel Growth

For many B2B organizations, there is renewed energy towards growth. Hesitant during the long crawl of the recession, companies are once again setting more ambitious growth goals. What makes this point in time different is buyers are no longer as they were just five years ago. Understanding buyers in the new digital age takes on new meaning for how companies must adapt and achieve growth. Leaving Dark Age Best practices for buyer persona development are making significant advances. Losing the constraints brought on by narrow functional contexts found in product marketing, content marketing, and campaign management. Leading the way are…

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Up Your Game On Buyer Insight Research For Quality Buyer Personas

What has become abundantly clear to is this: understanding your prospects and customers is essential. B2B companies who outperform their competitors are doing so with deep insights into how their buyers are behaving. More importantly, learning the “why” of the behaviors driving their customers and prospects to make a purchase decision. Behind The Curve Many B2B companies are trying to get out from behind the curve of where their buyers and competitors have advanced. Struggling to get a clear picture on how disadvantaged they may be. Realizing practices put into place, even as short as three to five years ago,…

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Is Your 2014 Sales Strategy Already Doomed By Lack of Information?

Right around the corner, the laborious and angst filled process of planning for 2014 begins. 2014 will be different. While economic growth will remain sluggish (according to the Congressional Budget Office), businesses are starting to release the chains put around growth spending. A lot has changed since the meltdown of 2008. In these short five years, what we know about buying and selling has been turned upside down. The Revolution Continues What we have learned is a buyer revolution is in full swing with buyers now holding the cards. We are in the midst of it and the revolution shows…

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5 New Buyer Insights You Need To Grow Customer Acquisition

The buyer revolution is in a frenzied uprising. More empowered and influential than ever before, buyers are letting it be known of their dissatisfaction. Several reports during the past year indicate buyers frown upon self-serving as well as product-based content marketing and sales approaches. The power of revolt now a mere click to the trash icon. What buyers today are beginning to voice is the higher expectations of knowing about their business. With these higher expectations comes a new standard, which must be met. B2B organization must come to the table with business related advice on how to solve business…

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Follow the Road to Content Marketing Effectiveness with Buyer Persona Story Mapping

(This is part three of a three part series on the use of Buyer Persona Stories™, Buyer Persona Scenarios™, and Buyer Persona Story Mapping™ to drive effective content marketing strategy.) Getting to see the big picture about customers and buyers today is not easy. It can be like sitting in an old stadium trying to peak around a su_column to see the field. When you cannot see the whole field, you are missing the action. With buying behavior changing rapidly each quarter, not having the big picture on the actions of buyers can set back an organizations significantly. In part…

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Accelerate Content Marketing Effectiveness With The Power of Buyer Persona Stories

(This is part one of a three part series on the use of Buyer Persona Stories™, Buyer Persona Scenarios™, and Buyer Persona Story Mapping™ to drive effective content marketing strategy.) One good trait of a storyteller is they also know about the story of the person or people they are telling a story to. Knowing how to tell the story in a way that draws them in. Creating an experience, which can suspend time and make a person believe they are in the story. This is the goal of content marketing – to tell good stories compelling a buyer to act.…

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Does Your Organization Have What It Takes to Catch Up to Evolving Buyers?

Today’s buyers are afforded sources of information, systems, and tools, which help them to make the right purchase decisions. Depending on the complexity of challenges faced, buyers may be seeking simple answers or complex custom solutions. For B2B buyers, the nature of buying itself has changed. This puts pressure on B2B marketers and sellers to evolve and get in lock step with buyers. Many are behind the pace of buyers. Statistics Losing Meaning Over the past year or two, we have had many statistics proclaimed about the buyer’s journey. Stating buyers are from 50% to as much as 90% through…

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4 Hurdles To Being Customer-Centric (4 Steps to Jump Over Them)

In commoditized markets, B2B organizations are under constant threat of watching their customer base evaporate into thin air. Getting caught flat-footed as markets migrate to competitors offering newer products and services. Suffering the consequences of not transitioning from a product-centric company to a customer-centric company. Is Customer-Centric Enough? B2B organizations continue to struggle in the shift from product-centricity to customer-centricity. This is despite taking extraordinary steps to do so. Heralding new programs designed to focus the company on their customers. Implementing customer experience initiatives. Beefing up customer service capabilities. Creating new services to improve delivery and implementation. Yet, today such…

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Use Persona-Based Buying Scenarios To Improve Buyer Predictability

One of the must have competencies in the future of B2B is buyer predictability. Without it, there will be an inability to anticipate how to help buyers and customers. Creating the undesirable position of being old news. Scenario Planning Scenario planning, as a strategic tool, has been around for a while. It is used in several contexts. You will see its use in military, economic, and business environments. The use of scenarios in buyer persona and insight development is an important component. During the past dozens years, best-in-class organizations, from Fortune 500 to mid-size companies, have made use of persona-based…

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