Are You Diving Deep Enough Into Your Buyers’ Heads? [B2B Forum Coverage]

Are You Diving Deep Enough Into Your Buyers’ Heads? [B2B Forum Coverage]:from New Research on Lead Generation through Web 2.0 Media | Marketing ... by Stephanie Tilton
It seems every marketer is talking about “buyer personas” these days. But are they all spinning their wheels?
Unless you’ve interviewed buyers directly and have unearthed insights and trends in five key areas, you don’t know Jack.
According to Adelle Revella of the Buyer Persona Institute in her B2B Forum presentation,  if you stop at a “core buyer persona” (often called a customer profile), you and your competitors are likely on the same footing. And you don’t truly know enough to make a difference in how you influence the buying decision.
The secret is to understand why and how a buyer decides to choose you over the competition or the status quo. As Adele says, when you know how a buyer relates to a decision you want to influence, you have a true buyer persona.
And to arrive at all the necessary insights, someone with the right interviewing skills must interview 6-8 buyers as soon as possible after their purchase and before they implement.
Through these interviews, you’ll uncover patterns and trends around:

• Triggering events that make a buying decision a priority
• Outcomes buyers expect to achieve by using your offering
• Objections to doing business with you
• The buying process
• Decisions made at each stage in the buying process

With a solid grasp of what Adele calls these Five Rings of Insight, marketers can:

• More effectively segment their database
• Prioritize marketing investments
• Develop more strategic, relevant, persuasive messaging and content
• Better focus sales on promising prospects and enable them to win deals

Ready to get started with buyer persona best practices? Visit www.buyerpersona.com. Want to accompany MarketingProfs virtually during our B2B Forum? Follow the #mpb2b hashtag on Twitter.