Anytime an article title reads something like “Using Buyer Personas Does NOT Help,” you have my attention.
This notion was a shock to me. I’ve developed successful buyer personas in a variety of industries. So, I clicked through to read the article in full. It was by a respectable resource, and I took its claim seriously.
The author described what a buyer persona was and how he said it did not work to increase his lead generation results. To make his case, he explained his process. He used demographics and psychographics to build a profile of different “typical” buyer types. And then he crafted what he thought would be a targeted approach to each type. And his results were not satisfactory.
Well, duh. He only did half the job.
He apparently stopped at demographics and psychographics. At “statements of fact.” I saw no indication that he delved into his buyers’ frame of mind. Where was his research and analysis of the challenges that each persona faced in doing his job daily? What about the persona’s role in the buying decision? Or their stage in the buying process? There’s more, of course, but you get the idea.
Building successful buyer personas goes beyond “specs.” You need to think like each buyer type and figure out what matters to him or her. And you need to understand how the persona will evolve as the sales process moves forward. As I said above, there’s more to it, but again, you get the idea. By understanding the life of your prospect, you are much better positioned to create winning lead nurturing efforts.