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Personas are the latest craze among B-to-B marketers.
For good reason.
Like the GPS in your car, personas guide you in your quest to find new customers.
Jeff Ogden, president and CMO of Find New Customers, offers these five tips for creating strong personas:
1. Start with the companies of your ideal customers. Begin by developing profiles of your best buyers' companies. Think about the problems you solve for these businesses.
2. Identify your customers' job titles. Ask your salespeople who the decisionmakers are.
3. Ask 13 questions. What’s the prospect's role in the buying decision? What keeps her up at night? What motivates her? Is she acquainted with your organization? Where does she get news? How does she make decisions? What associations does she belong to? What events does she attend? Does she seek advice from colleagues and peers? How is she dealing with problems today? What words does she use to describe the problems? Does she prefer high-level or detailed information? What prevents her from choosing you?
4. Leverage all contact points. For answers to these questions, talk to all the people who deal with customers. Ask both sales and customer support. Pose questions on Linkedin and Twitter. Use internal surveys. Participate in blogs and online communities.
5. Keep revising the personas. "Personas are an endless quest for perfection," says Ogden. So set bimonthly meetings to review them.
During a recent phone call, a client said to me, "Your blog post today was better than Seth."
What I heard was, "better than sex."
I paused for maybe 10 seconds, at a loss for words.
"Seth Godin," he added, feeling the need to clarify.
High praise nevertheless.
Here's a fundamental law:
The majority of B-to-B buyers engage with a supplier only when they're ready to buy.
That's why all the "pushing" in the world won't budge them.
But you need to stay on buyers' radar screens, so when the "moment of truth" arises they seek you out.
So instead of pushing, try pulling. Use these five building blocks:
A. Social networks (especially LinkedIn)
B. Blogs
C. Public relations
D. E-newsletters
E. Paid search
"Ask customers."
They're committed to your brand, too.
But, unlike insiders, customers will provide the Emperor-has-no-clothes appraisal you need when an idea lacks merit.
I'm ceaselessly puzzled by organizations that don't seek an outside reality check before investing in some initiative.
They're everywhere.
On the other hand, be careful to ask the right customers the right questions.
Because a lot of them (most) have puny imaginations.
Henry Ford famously said, "If I asked my customers what they want, they simply would have said a faster horse."
While most live-event producers encourage participants to push out content, software giant SAP goes one better.
In advance, SAP maps out the social media coverage of its annual sales meeting.
SAP identifies a dozen newsworthy topics, then deputizes skilled "reporters” to cover them at the event.
The employees SAP co-opts as reporters must meet a couple requirements. One, they must be proficient in social media. Two, they must have online followers.
They're provided tools and training by the company, so their reportage is even.
During the meeting, the reporters get legal permission to publish interviews and testimonials by asking interviewees to sign index cards with simple "release" language.
The reporters also carry special-purpose business cards with Web addresses printed on them. They hand these to interviewees, who predictably ask, "Where will this appear?”
You can learn more about SAP's efforts by visiting Andy's Answers at SmartBlog.
