I am fascinated by a recent Gartner study about the journey of 700 enterprise buyers across the U.S., EMEA, Brazil, India and China. According to a recent with Hank Barnes, Research Vice President at Gartner, the study focused on four areas:

• During the buying process, what types of activities and information do you use, independent of the firm you are evaluating?
• What type of content do you use from the provider itself?
• What marketing activities get your attention?
• What are you expecting from sales interactions?

The findings? Buyers spend only 32% of their journey interacting with supplier-side content or sales people. Two thirds of the buyer鈥檚 journey is devoted to internal assessments, peer networking, and the recommendations of external experts.

According to Barnes, buyers 鈥渉ave access to all this stuff from vendors, but making sense of it, interpreting it, understanding that they have the right stuff is where they鈥檙e really struggling.鈥�

This data quantifies exactly what we hear every day in our buyer persona interviews. And as a career sales and marketing professional, I am amazed that every company hasn’t realized that filling this void could be the best way to gain a competitive advantage.

In a few months ago, I related our experience interviewing buyers who say that marketing materials do nothing to help them make a decision, as competing solutions relate the same obvious benefits rather than useful information. The buyers鈥� experience with sales people is mostly a continuation of this theme, as sales arrives with the same marketing message rather than the critical details that help buyers gain confidence in their decision.

We know that many marketers are trying to explain the value of interviewing buyers to understand their needs and expectations. Maybe now that we have a report stating that vendors are privy to only 1/3 of the buyer鈥檚 journey, we can make it clear that it doesn鈥檛 work to build buyer personas by culling information from salespeople and marketing automation solutions. We’re seeing a very small part of the decision we need to influence.

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These aren’t the real issues for Sam, I said. He鈥檚 been living with these problems for years 鈥� why would he be motivated to talk to you now? We explored the more personal side of this issue for Sam 鈥� could his job or career be compromised by sticking with the status quo? Which aspects of this decision look riskiest to Sam? What, exactly, is at stake if he makes a decision to go with your solution and it doesn鈥檛 work out?

I kept asking for deeper insight into Sam鈥檚 resistance to their solution. Sam knows about products such as yours, I said, so this isn鈥檛 about the obvious problems. Let鈥檚 talk about his attitudes and what it would it take to change those perceptions.

After a bit of discussion, my client said, 鈥淚 get it! Buyer personas are about 鈥榮take-in-the-heart鈥� marketing.鈥� A bit violent, I thought, but the people in the room suddenly understood that capturing the same old 鈥減ain-points鈥� in their buyer persona renders it meaningless.

I鈥檝e never seen a more interesting example of stake-in-the-heart marketing than this year鈥檚 U.S. presidential campaign. I confess that as a marketer I am predisposed to see the election through the lens of effective campaign strategy, but think about it. Can you see that the proposed answers to the country鈥檚 problems (health care, the economy, terrorism) are the candidate鈥檚 鈥渇eature-benefits,鈥� crafted into messages that target different persona pain points? Do the differences in their plans fully account for your decision? Are their solutions new enough to explain the record numbers of people voting in the primaries? Or could it be that these candidates have managed to communicate on an entirely different level, and to audiences who are seeking something more?

With rare exceptions, the technology solutions I hear about each week are a lot like politicians 鈥� the differences between competing features and benefits aren鈥檛 enough to drive most people to take action. Plus buyers know that technology (and political) solutions are more difficult to implement than anyone wants to admit. Marketing needs to get personal if we want to convince buyers that our solutions can be trusted get the job done, come what may.

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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.

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