“Know the customer,” is a mantra that many sales and marketing managers teach. It’s what the cover story in this issue is all about (page 42). It’s something near and dear to marketing consultant Adele Revella’s heart.
She developed her own system for B2B companies to gain insight on their customers that she calls Buyer Personas. These Five Rings of Insight are the most overlooked and essential aspect of buyer personas, she says.
1.Priority Initiatives – Identify the three to five problems or objectives where a buyer is dedicating time, budget and political capital.
2.Success Factors – Identify the tangible or intangible rewards that a buyer associates with success (growing revenue by X or reducing operating costs by Y).
3.Perceived Barriers – Capture the buyer’s reasons to question whether your solution or company is capable of achieving the targeted Success Factors.
4.Buying Process – Identify the process that a buyer will follow to explore and select the product, service or solution that can overcome the Perceived Barriers and achieve the Success Factors.
5.Decision Criteria – Specify the aspects of the product, service or company that the buyer will assess as they evaluate each of the alternative solutions.
As companies learn to appreciate personas’ ability to predict buyer behavior with uncanny accuracy, marketers can find themselves awarded a place at the strategy table thanks to their insight on key issues influencing buyers, Revella says.
For more on Buyer Personas, visit buyerpersona.com.
