Persona Development: Knowing your customers is good business
With all the zigs and zags of the past year, persona development has never been more important. In light of worldwide pandemics, how b2b buyers make purchase decisions evolves daily. In fact, statistics show 60% of buyers aren’t ready to talk to a salesperson until they’ve done their own research. So, if you want to be found, you must be online.
And if you’re online, you need content. For example, b2b buyers consume an average of 14 content pieces before deciding on a vendor. And, the only way to create truly valuable content is to understand your customers. And, to understand your customer, persona development must be a priority.
Buyer persona development helps your organization understand who their customers are, how to target them, and how best to serve them. Further, they allow your organization to connect with buyers in a meaningful way because you can provide relevant content at each stage of their purchase journey.
Still Dragging your feet when it comes to customer persona development?
Focusing your time and energy on persona development will positively impact your bottom line. But, if you’re still questioning the value of building customer personas, read these 5 benefits. Having buyer personas will improve your organizational alignment and provide a more informed sales strategy. It will also help you deliver a better customer experience and improve your customer relations. Finally, it will deliver more focused marketing strategy and communications efforts.
5 Benefits of Persona Development
Improved Organizational Alignment
Customer persona development can create better alignment across your organization. If all teams, from sales and marketing to customer service and operations, know who the ideal client is, there will be better integration. This results in better client service.
The activity of persona development involves collaboration across departments. The process of discussion and agreement on who to target, why they should be targeted and how to target customers, provides clarity for each area of the organization. Once there is a unified vision of the ideal customer(s), each department can align their processes, products and services to support this customer. Further, issues that one department faces over another can rise to the surface during this process. This helps to shine a light on areas to improve, assign resources and problem solve.
A More Informed Sales Strategy
Uncovering how your customer makes a decision and all the players involved in that decision is a critical part of persona development. This process allows your sales team to refine and improve their selling process.
It’s no secret that the role of the salesperson has changed. For example, today an average of 7 people are involved in the buying decision. When your team understands yours buyers and influencers, they can adapt their messages for more meaningful connection.
An average of 7 people are now involved in most buying decisions in a typical firm with 100-500 employees.
Drives Positive Customer Experience
Customers are now in the driver’s seat when it comes to making purchase decisions. The power shift from sales to customer has magnified the importance of customer experience. After all, customer personas are the heart of any “voice of the customer program”. Why? Because they allow you to keep the customer and his/her needs at the center of your decisions.
A well crafted buyer persona allows you to tailor a customer experience specifically to suit their needs and questions. This personalized approach also demonstrates why they should choose you over your competitor.
Improves Customer Retention
Walk a mile in their shoes. This means working to understand the good, the bad and the ugly when it comes to your customers’ interactions with your organization. This provides you with invaluable data to improve both your sales process and service/support.
Persona development helps you “see things” from your customers’ point of view. This perspective helps you to better address their concerns, solve product or service challenges, and develop new products. The result? Improved customer loyalty.
Delivers More Focused Marketing Strategy & Communications
Good persona development doesn’t just focus on “feel good” criteria. It should also identify your customer’s pain points. This provides clearer, more succinct messaging and brand positioning for your marketing strategy and ultimately your marketing communications.
The bottom line: communicating the things that matter, simply and clearly, to the people who make the buying decisions, makes for better marketing.
