Knowing how to craft detailed, effective buyer personas can be a game-changer for any B2B marketing strategy. It’s no secret that marketing costs money, and buyer personas are a great way to ensure that your budget is being put to the best possible use by tailoring your messaging, products, and services to meet the unique needs and challenges of your target audience.
Let’s dive into how to craft B2B buyer personas as we explain what they are, how to create them and walk you through an example.
What are buyer personas?
Think of buyer personas as detailed profiles of your ideal customers, based on a mix of market research and real data from your existing clients. Buyer personas aren’t real people, but you should try to make them as realistic as possible to reflect the kind of audience you’d like to reach. This means including everything from demographic information to their behaviour patterns, motivations, and goals. In the B2B world, these personas often represent different members of an organisation who play a key role in purchasing decisions.
Creating buyer personas helps you step into the shoes of your customers. They guide your strategies, ensuring that your campaigns are relevant and resonate with your audience, and allowing you to create more effective and personalised marketing.
How to craft buyer personas
Collect data and spot patterns
Gather all the information you’ve collected from your research, which could include customer interviews, surveys, insights from your sales team, website analytics, and social media interactions. Then, look for common traits and behaviours among your customers, such as their job titles, company sizes and industries, their challenges, and how they make decisions.
Define demographics
Use your data to decide the demographics of your persona. This could be anything as basic as their gender, age and location, to professional information like their job title, role and responsibilities within their company, or their career path.
Understand goals and challenges
Outline what your persona is trying to achieve – do they want to boost their company’s efficiency, cut costs, or maybe increase revenue? What obstacles might they face when trying to achieve this? These could be industry-specific issues, budget constraints, or time management challenges.
Analyse their behaviour
Now think about how your persona carries out their role on a day-to-day basis. How do they make decisions, who do they liaise with, and what are their priorities? When it comes to content, what type of content do they prefer and where do they find it? They might read white papers, attend webinars, or follow industry blogs.
Document and share
Finally, using all the information you’ve gathered, develop a detailed profile of your persona. Use templates to keep things consistent, and make sure all relevant teams have had their chance to give their input to keep your persona as detailed and informed as possible.
Example of a B2B buyer persona
Name: Naomi Thompson
Job Title: Head of Marketing
Company: Mid-sized tech business (approx. 100 employees)
Industry: Software as a Service (SaaS)
Location: Manchester, UK
Age: 45
Experience: 20 years in the marketing industry
Career path: Started as a marketing analyst, moved up through managerial roles, and has been in her current role for the last five years.
Goals:
- Increase the company’s market share
- Increase brand awareness in a competitive market
- Implement data-driven strategies to optimise campaign performance
Challenges:
- Limited marketing budget
- Difficulty tracking and measuring ROI of campaigns
- Keeping up with rapidly evolving tech trends and tools
Decision-making process: Consults with the CEO and finance team for major purchases. Uses case studies and ROI projections to inform decisions.
Content consumption: Regularly reads industry reports, attends webinars, and follows thought leaders on LinkedIn. Prefers in-depth white papers and case studies over blog posts.
Preferred channels:
- Industry conferences and events
- Specialised marketing and tech blogs
Why create B2B buyer personas?
Crafting B2B buyer personas can transform the way you connect with your target audience by helping you better understand who your ideal customers are, what they aim to achieve, and the challenges they face, allowing you to tailor your marketing efforts to resonate with them on a personal level.
With well-defined buyer personas, your messaging becomes more relevant, your campaigns more effective, and your solutions more compelling. This personalised approach ensures that when you do speak to prospects, you’ll be well-equipped to meet their needs and expectations, laying the groundwork for your campaign’s success.
Looking to transform your B2B buying journey? Email hello@weareembrace.com for an initial chat or visit our Thoughts page for more on our approach.
This latest thinking article was written by:
Jack Lenton
Content Manager
