Book Excerpt: ‘Buyer Personas: Insights into Customer Decisions’

“Buyer Personas: Gain Deep Insight into Customers’ Buying Decisions” presents tools, techniques, and real-world case studies to help management win more business. The authors, Jim Kraus and Adele Revella, are experienced marketers and the president and founder, respectively, of the Buyer Persona Institute.

The book is available in digital ($17) or hardcover print ($23.80) at Wiley, the publisher, or Amazon.

What follows is an edited excerpt.

Marketers as Experts

No one questions the assumption that the finance team is best qualified to keep the books or that engineering is most knowledgeable about building useful products. But marketing tends to be everyone’s playground.

Buyer Personas, Revised and Expanded

Once they are perceived as experts, marketers should receive similar authority to affect decisions that impact buyers. From market expansion and product extensions, the buyer’s perspective is paramount to success or failure. There is a vacuum of buying insight inside most corporations. Marketers need to own that competency.

At any meeting where buyers’ opinions are relevant, try to start your sentence with, “We’ve been listening to buyers, and here’s what they think,” or “We have been interviewing buyers, and they said they wanted. . . .”

Statements such as these may raise questions about how recently you have spoken to buyers, so be prepared to back up your comments. We recommend conducting at least one interview a month.

In reality, however, buying insights rarely change, and when they do, you will likely require additional interviews. That’s because the primary triggers for these changes are typically big news — a broad upturn or downturn in economic conditions, the merger or divestiture by a significant competitor, or a new regulation that requires consumers to invest in a solution like your organization’s. Major technological advances or security problems are other factors affecting buying insights. If any of these occur, consider another round of interviews to understand how your buyer’s mindset may have shifted.

Communicating with Teams

As buyers describe your products, you will likely learn about non-marketing-related matters impacting their purchase decisions.

Perhaps your product doesn’t integrate with a particular network or infrastructure. Maybe it doesn’t create the kind of reports that are in demand.

Be cautious with any of these discoveries. Remember that your primary goal is to gain guidance for changes that will improve your marketing activities.

For example, if buyers consistently have the same incorrect perception about the product, your first step is to own the problem and invest in marketing activities to debunk the misperception. If critical, make it a key message on your website or in an ebook. Reinforce the need for sales teams to emphasize that capability.

But once you’ve won internal support for the value of buyer personas, take product-related findings to your development team and sales-related problems to management.