Use audience personas to get the business you want—with less effort
The marketing and sales process is a lot like dating. You’ll find your ideal mate—or in this case, the ideal customer—with a lot less effort if you know who you’re looking for.
You can zero in on your ideal customer by creating an audience persona. An audience persona helps everyone in the organization focus their efforts on the companies that will be most profitable. Personas make it easy to tailor messages that are relevant, specific and memorable.
Audience personas help focus your efforts on the companies that will be most profitable
Audience personas also reduce friction between marketing, sales and product development by providing objective criteria for decision-making—everything from “Is this lead qualified?” to “Should we create this new feature?”
Must-haves for B2B audience personas
As you develop your audience personas, include these elements:
- Company characteristics such as industry, size, revenue, location and maturity in the market.
- Decision-maker characteristics such as typical gender, title, average age, level of education and workplace responsibilities.
- Problems and needs the organization is likely experiencing, especially those relevant to your product or service offering.
- Current and desired perceptions about your industry, your organization, your competitors and your product or service.
Create an audience persona for each of your core offerings, and for each market segment, industry or vertical market where you operate. Update your personas annually and share them with everyone involved in the marketing and sales process, including your copywriters, graphic designers and agency partners.