It’s only possible when marketers and sales people know very well what they sell and if they spend more time assessing the real needs and pain points of the customer. But this is almost like consulting and it may become too expensive for companies to acquire new customers

Hugs
Karine Borges

We’ve definitely got to focus on the entire journey, because buyers are relying on those non-supplier interactions to decide who they will consider once they talk to suppliers. If we’ve been eliminated, our salespeople can’t get in and do their job.

This isn’t a linear analysis either, with the 32% at the end of the journey. Buyers are jumping in and out of supplier engagement at various stages of the journey, and this interaction differs depending on what buying decision the persona is engaged in analyzing.

The take-away is that we’ve got to stop the proliferation of benefits-oriented content and understand the buyers’ expectations and frustrations throughout their journey. When we know more than our competition about that journey, we can deliver the most useful answers to at each stage in that journey. And that earns the buyer’s trust.

For example, leverage buyer persona interviews to understand what they truly need in the buyer journey and publish content and assets beyond the scope of your standard product marketing assets. Ideally it’s high-value content that gets shared amongst the community and peers and treated differently than traditional “product marketing”.

Or is it more about being more impactful in the 32% of the journey you can directly influence?

Ron

You’re so right, Adele, when you saiy “Radio Shack would have been better served to stick to its goal of serving the core buyer that did want to build stuff” -> RadioShack would have its hands full today with customers who are into 3D printing and Arduinos and the whole maker movement. Imagine 7000 stores catering to this fast-rising new market.

Thanks for the comment, Guy. I’ve heard about “Innovator’s Dilemma” and just moved it up on my priority reading list.

You are so right that some companies target buyers who are more likely to “move on” and out of a company’s area of competence. Tech companies are particularly vulnerable. There really isn’t anyone in the company who can gather buying insight in the normal course of business. Sales people only talk to buyers who include the company in their consideration set. Customer service people hear from users about concerns that never factored into their buying decision.

I am hoping to help companies understand that buyer personas are not about pretty pictures and Powerpoints. We desperately need to evolve the marketing role to be the source of real insight into their target buyers’ expectations and their evolving attitudes about the company’s ability to address them. Radio Shack would have been better served to stick to its goal of serving the core buyer that did want to build stuff, and being the best at filling that need, even if it meant becoming a smaller company than they had envisioned.

Good question Jane, and the good news is that you don’t need to have senior executives available to conduct the interviews with senior executive buyers. It is important, however, that the person who conducts the interview is able to speak comfortably with the senior executive, which takes a bit of practice. If you are the interviewer or even trying to schedule an interview and are intimidated by that person, your attitude will be apparent and you will not have a good interview experience. Other than this concern, there is nothing different about scheduling an interview with a senior executive than with anyone else who participates in the buying decision. The advice on how to do that is too detailed for this reply. For more help, this topic is covered in a 20-minute module in the