When marketers start with the objective to understand how buyers make the decision they want to influence, they鈥檙e building about half as many personas and uncovering insights that tell them exactly what they can (and cannot) do to impact those buyers鈥� decisions.

I think I understand the origin of the confusion. Companies have always segmented their markets by demographics (company size, industry, geography), so it鈥檚 natural to expect that personas simply extend that model to focus on the buyers in those segments.

Consider which of these data points would help you understand what you can do to persuade buyers to choose the solutions you market:

Demographics are a Dangerous Distraction
Countless blog posts and ebooks perpetuate the demographic approach to buyer personas. One marketer told me about a buyer persona training where they were advised to begin by choosing a name and a photo to represent their buyer. Other marketers are telling me about six-figure investments in buyer personas that contained endless demographic details but nothing they could really use.

I鈥檓 determined to correct these misperceptions.

Until recently, 色花堂 Institute has primarily trained marketers whose companies scheduled one of our customized workshops for their teams. Today, we鈥檙e announcing that the 色花堂 Masterclass is available on demand to any marketer, in two parts:

• Five pre-recorded modules for viewing on our website at your convenience (total viewing time is 2 hours)
• A 90-minute live interactive session that includes coaching and mock interviews

I look forward to hearing from those of you who want to become the buyer expert marketers that stakeholders trust for persuasive marketing strategies.

The post Building B2B 色花堂s? Focus on the Buying Decision … then the Person appeared first on 色花堂 Institute.

Some believe that buyer personas, which are helping to shift the B2B industry鈥檚 attention to the people who make corporate buying decisions, will have the additional benefit of blurring the distinctions that have locked so many marketers into their original career path.

If this attitude helps marketers expand their job options, this is probably a good thing. However, I believe the logic is faulty.

That鈥檚 because a marketer鈥檚 role and contribution is not distinguished by the company鈥檚 focus on B2B or B2C solutions, but by the degree of 鈥渃onsideration鈥� a buyer gives to the decision the marketer wants to influence.聽 For the most part, B2C products are 鈥渓ow-consideration鈥� decisions, where branding plays a major role in the buyer鈥檚 choice, while B2B products tend to be 鈥渉igh-consideration鈥� decisions where buyers need specific information before they commit.

The fact that levels of buyer consideration so frequently align with industries might explain the longstanding divide between B2B and B2C marketing. But there are exceptions, and the interest in buyer personas is amplifying the need for a more nuanced view.

A simple example of a low-consideration decision is the B2C buyer鈥檚 impulsive purchase of a new type of magazine or candy at the checkout counter. 聽On the opposite end of the consideration scale, however, B2C buyers make relatively high-consideration decisions when they invest in a home, major appliance, retirement plan, or private school for their children.聽 A mid-range B2C buying decision might involve planning for an upcoming vacation.

Note that this same person may have a job where she invests weeks, months, or even years on a team that is evaluating a new technology solution for her company. She also makes relatively low-consideration B2B decisions about sending members of her team to an industry conference.

I鈥檓 not saying that brand is irrelevant to buyers of high-consideration solutions, or that information is unimportant to buyers of low-consideration products. Instead, I am suggesting that there is an enormous difference in the weight that buyers give to these factors, and that this has a huge impact on expectations and investments in marketing.

By thinking about the following two factors, it is fairly easy to understand where your product, service or solution fits on your buyer鈥檚 continuum of 鈥渃onsideration.鈥� Think about:

• Your buyers’ investment in weighing alternative approaches and making a choice
• Your buyers’ opinion about the financial, operational and/or personal consequences of making the wrong decision

This distinction is important for buyer personas because marketers of low-consideration products can improve their marketing and branding decisions by identifying 鈥減ersonal鈥� buyer attributes such as gender, age, hobbies, marital status, income levels, commuting patterns, and so forth.

However, marketers of high-consideration products, services, and solutions are justifiably perplexed about how to use buyer personas that focus only on the buyer’s personal or demographic details. These marketers, whether B2B or B2C, need insight into the information needs of a targeted group of buyers as they make the decision to purchase their product, a competitor鈥檚, or to do nothing at all.聽 That鈥檚 where the Five Rings of Insight are essential to the marketer鈥檚 success.

Levels of buyer consideration also impact the marketer鈥檚 options for building buyer personas. Because we know that buyers of low-consideration products cannot reliably explain their own choices, these marketers will need to invest in sophisticated research by third-party professionals.

On the other hand, buyers of high-consideration products can and will tell you exactly how and why they made a recent decision. Marketers who learn how to conduct a uniquely structured but unscripted conversation with these buyers can uncover critical details that the buyer has not yet shared with anyone.聽 These invaluable insights are the foundation of competitive and effective messaging, content marketing, segmentation and sales enablement for high consideration solutions.

I鈥檒l give a brief overview of the buyer insights that are essential for marketing high-consideration solutions at an upcoming free webinar, , with Janet Driscoll Miller, President and CEO of Search Mojo, on November 15, 2012 at 2:00 p.m. ET.

The post What’s Different About B2B vs. B2C Marketing? appeared first on 色花堂 Institute.

A: What color did you choose?

B: How did you choose the color?

C:There are great apartments for rent right now. Have you thought about moving?

Answers vary on this selection (more on that later). But it’s clear that the question needs to follow the woman鈥檚 lead, that we would never script our conversation in advance of the social interaction. Imagine the confused, annoyed or bored response from this woman if we asked 鈥渟o what do you think about that new play that just opened?鈥�

Most people are perplexed when I ask them to conduct unscripted buyer persona interviews. These are the same people who will happily show up in any social situation, listen for threads of topics that others find engaging, and guide the conversation to mutually relevant topics.

Why not take this same approach with buyer interviews?

While it is definitely more taxing to develop questions in real time, the pressure to do so keeps us listening intently. And each time we base a question on a point that the buyer has recently made, our rapport with the other person builds. The buyer might even tell me, a perfect stranger, something he hasn鈥檛 told anyone else.

Pre-defined questions can only address topics that we found interesting before we started listening to the buyer. Worse yet, we are unlikely to learn anything new, having missed the opportunity to probe deeply on an interesting point..

This approach is especially critical for win/loss interviews. We need to get buyers talking at length about their decision criteria and process. We aren’t going to discover any actionable insights by writing down the buyer鈥檚 short answer — that we lost the deal on price and features, or won it because our sales rep is such a great guy. We need much deeper insights into how and why the company made this decision.

For instance, if the buyer told us that one of the triggers for this decision was that our solution was easiest to use, we might follow up by asking the buyer to describe what, specifically, they found to be easy. Or we might ask what level of user would find it easy to use, and what training they expected that user to need. Another line of questioning might reveal details about how they assessed the solution’s ease-of-use.

Returning to your interaction at the party, if you selected question A (what color will she paint her apartment), you have just learned that your new acquaintance likes light yellow, which might be interesting if you are selecting colors of paint to carry in your store, or what colors to feature in a marketing campaign for paint.

Question B (how did she choose the color?) is a great follow-up question, or likely your best first question, as this should trigger a story about the way this person thinks and makes decisions. This question will probably get you the answer to the color too.

Question C (did you know there are some great apartments for rent?) is changing the subject, a terrible technique when you need to build rapport, and one of the major reasons that interviews should never be scripted.

Unless you鈥檙e marketing home improvement products, you shouldn’t care about anyone鈥檚 choice of paint 鈥� buyer鈥檚 decision processes vary dramatically based on the products, services and solutions they’re considering.聽 But we want to have an agenda, perhaps three-to-five topics that we hope to explore, and not a structured questionnaire, if we want buyers to tell us what really persuades them to make decisions about our category of solutions.

The post Ask interesting questions to hear how buyers think appeared first on 色花堂 Institute.

These thoughts were triggered when one of my readers forwarded a paper published by Laura Ramos, Forrester Research鈥檚 analyst for B2B Marketing. The paper, entitled 鈥淪egmentation vs 色花堂s, Where Should B2B Marketers Start?鈥� reports that B2B marketers are way behind their B2C peers in developing effective messaging and marketing strategies, and that the source of our problem is that we don鈥檛 useboth sides of our brain. I鈥檓 sure that Jonathan Asbell sent me the paper because Laura points to segmentation and personas as the answer. Thanks, Jonathan.

The Forrester report describes the typical B2B approach to segmentation, with marketers following the sales people’s lead and utilizing industry, geography, or company size to identify target markets. B2C marketers start with this thinking but delve much deeper, seeking to understand and segment markets based on subjective differences in how customers approach decision making. In Laura鈥檚 report, she recommends personas as a way to capture and communicate these deeper insights.

Laura published her report in June 2006, but I haven鈥檛 seen much change. We鈥檙e still using the same left-brained thinking to develop marketing strategies, despite the fact that our markets are maturing. We鈥檙e not at B2C commodity stage yet, but we鈥檙e well beyond the time when we could successfully market and differentiate products based on the just-released features.

Since you鈥檙e reading my blog you may already agree with me, and are wondering what you can do to get your management to listen. I鈥檓 happy to recommend Laura鈥檚 report for those in your company who might be influenced by a Forrester analyst. Here鈥檚 one of my favorite parts of her report:

鈥淏ecause segmentation defines who to target and personas describe what to say to them, B2B marketers should use both hard numbers and soft emotions to expand their customer understanding. They should delve deeper into prospect requirements and needs in exchange for handing out information like white papers or detailed product specs.鈥�

Well said, Laura. We need to resist thinking like our left-brained companies. We need to abandon our personal preferences for right-brained, creative activities. It鈥檚 time for technology marketers to engage in some balanced brain utilization.

The post Right-brained or left-brained marketing appeared first on 色花堂 Institute.

One word of caution before you break out your credit card. This report and the research supporting Kim’s findings is focusd on B2C companies. According to Kim a B2B version is coming soon from fellow analyst Laura Ramos. I’ll be watching and let you know when it’s available.

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