On paper, two vice presidents of operations at similar manufacturing companies might look like the same buyer. One may start a vendor search after an equipment failure by first calling a trusted colleague. The other may spend months reading industry content before a problem becomes urgent enough to act. A traditional persona may capture who they are without revealing much about how either one buys.
Buyer personas have long helped B2B marketers put a face to their target audiences. A typical persona includes a buyer’s job title, responsibilities, goals, challenges, objections, and perhaps some information about where that individual turns for information. While this information is still useful, it provides only a partial view of how B2B purchasing decisions happen today. Rather, traditional personas tend to create an overly simplistic picture of a buying process that has become anything but simple.
A more complete view considers who buyers are, which companies are the right fit, what triggers a search for a solution, who becomes involved, how they conduct research, what information they trust, and what influences the final decision.
Some marketers have shifted greater attention to ideal customer profiles (ICPs), which define the types of organizations they want to reach, rather than the individuals within them. But whether marketers use personas, ICPs, or a combination of the two, those profiles tell only part of the story.
There May Be No Single Buyer
The idea of a single buyer also can be misleading in B2B marketing. A significant purchase typically involves multiple stakeholders. For example, the buying group may include an executive who approves the investment, a department head who champions it, an employee who will use the product, an IT professional who evaluates technical requirements, and a procurement representative who negotiates the contract. Each individual approaches the decision with different priorities and questions.
The CFO may care about financial risk and return. An operations executive may focus on productivity. IT may care about security and integration. An end user may simply want to know whether the solution will make work easier or harder. A single persona doesn’t capture all of those perspectives.
Rather than asking only “Who is our buyer?”, a broader question is “Who influences the decision, and what does each person need to know?”
The Buyer Journey Isn’t a Straight Line
The traditional buyer journey also deserves a fresh look. Buyers don’t necessarily move predictably from awareness to consideration to decision. Someone might encounter an article, do nothing for three months, ask a colleague for advice, search online, attend a webinar, visit several vendor websites, abandon the project, and return when a new business problem makes the purchase more urgent.
Another buyer might start with a vendor recommendation and work backward, researching the company and its competitors before making contact.
Because B2B buyers don’t always follow a predictable path, understanding their behavior can provide more insight than assigning prospects to stages in a predetermined journey. That includes understanding not only how buyers research and evaluate options, but also what prompts them to start looking in the first place.
A new regulation, a change in leadership, a competitive threat, a technology problem, a budget cycle, a growth initiative, or a disappointing experience with an existing supplier can suddenly turn a low-priority issue into an immediate need.
Those triggers can reveal more about content needs than a job title ever could.
Same Buyer Profile, Different Buying Behavior
Two executives with the same title at similar companies, facing the same basic business problem, can research a purchase differently. One might rely heavily on recommendations from colleagues and industry peers. Another might start with a Google search. A third may follow industry publications, newsletters, podcasts, webinars, and LinkedIn discussions. Increasingly, buyers ask artificial intelligence (AI) tools to explain an issue, identify possible approaches, summarize available information, or help compare alternatives.
These changes raise an important question for marketers. It’s no longer enough to ask, “What message do we want this audience to hear?” Instead, the more relevant question is, “What questions will these buyers have, and where will they look for credible answers?”
That distinction influences marketing and content strategies. Buyers who aren’t ready to talk to a sales rep still need information. Articles, white papers, case studies, webinars, and other educational content can help them understand a problem, evaluate possible approaches, and establish which companies and experts they consider credible.
Build a More Complete Picture of the B2B Buyer
Rather than abandoning buyer personas, marketers can expand the information they use to understand their markets.
Five questions can help bring those different dimensions together:
- Which companies are the best fit? Define the characteristics of organizations most likely to need, value, and purchase the company’s solution.
- Who is involved? Identify the people who initiate, influence, evaluate, approve, and use the purchase.
- What triggers action? Understand the events, problems, and business priorities that move an issue from something a company could address to something it needs to address.
- How do buyers research and evaluate their options? Look at the sources they trust, the questions they ask, the people they consult, and the factors that cause them to add or eliminate potential solutions.
- What information do they need? Develop content around buyers’ real questions rather than focusing exclusively on what the organization wants to say about itself.
The result isn’t a tidy one-page description of a fictional customer. It’s a more useful picture of how real companies and the people within them make decisions.
Put Buyer Insights to Work
The value of buyer insights depends on how they are applied. If a persona, ICP, or other audience profile doesn’t influence the topics a company addresses, the questions its content answers, the channels it prioritizes, or the way sales approaches a prospect, it has limited value.
As B2B buying behavior changes, audience insights need to change with it. Regular conversations with customers and prospects, input from sales teams, and attention to how buyers find and evaluate information can reveal shifts that static profiles miss. Those insights can help marketers make better decisions about where to focus, what to say, and how to earn attention before a sales conversation begins.
