"THE GROWTH BLOG" - A RESOURCE FOR B2B LEADERS, MARKETERS, SALES & SERVICE PROFESSIONALS

Forget About Your Product, Think About Your Buyers!

In the world of marketing, we’re all familiar with The Four Ps – product, price, promotion and place. This principle of marketing was held strongly by businesses and marketers alike for decades, until it was highlighted that there is something very wrong with the four Ps. Promoting a great product in the right places at a reasonable price is all well and good, but there’s no mention about the customer, the buyer or the people that you are targeting for the product.

It was only when theorists considered the service industry that they recognised the importance of people in marketing and expanded The Four Ps into Seven Ps to include process and physical environment, in addition to people. But even then, the process was inverted as the focus is on creating the product or service rather than the customer whom the product / service is meant for, reducing customers to a mere afterthought.

It wasn’t until the 1990s when Lauterborn came up with a more customer-oriented version of The Four Ps and evolved it to become The Four Cs, that the shift from product-centric to consumer-centric marketing was evident. Product, price, promotion and place became consumer wants and needs, cost, communication and convenience respectively. And yet, despite the existence of evolved concepts, the marketing principle that reigned supreme in businesses and education was still The Four and Seven Ps. At least, until consumer power grew exponentially.

Forget_About_Your_Product,_Think_About_Your_Buyers

Now, consumer power is unparalleled. One quick search on Google can bring up eight million results in 0.3 seconds. They can learn the features of any product, read reviews by others who’ve used the product and compare it with other products in the market without stepping out of the comfort of their own home. More importantly, any opinion that is voiced online will be seen, heard and shared. Regardless of whether it’s seen by a small audience or millions worldwide, these opinions impact the business in one way or another.  

And that’s why you should listen to your customer.

Buyer influence is getting stronger, dictating what businesses need to provide and how they should provide it. Businesses that want to succeed have no other choice but to listen and deliver according to the customer’s needs. This is where a buyer persona comes in.

Your buyer persona must include every little piece of information you have about your buyer. From a B2B perspective, it should include:

  1. The industry they're in
  2. The size of the company
  3. The key role you target within that company
  4. The problems they face in relation to the one you solve
  5. The product / service they need in order to solve that problem
  6. The behaviour they engage in to solve the problem
  7. The channels they use to solve that problem
Why do you need a buyer persona?
  • Your understanding of your buyer’s problems and needs will help you formulate the right marketing messages in the right tone for your buyers. For instance, if the problem you solve for your buyers is ‘my accounting is all over the place’, your marketing materials should discuss exactly that problem, and how it can be solved. This is not to say that you should pitch your product in every marketing piece, but that your content should include what your buyer needs in order to solve that problem.
  • Knowledge of your buyer’s behaviour and channels they frequent will help you determine the tactics you need to employ to reach out to them, whether they are inbound or outbound and online or offline. If your target audience typically uses tenders to invite businesses to put forward proposals, it’s unlikely that they will respond positively to marketing messages on social media.
  • Your understanding of the type of roles to target will help you develop content that speaks to the buyer about the part of the problem that they are most concerned with. For instance, if you are targeting the CEO of a company, his problem will be that his messy accounting is causing him to lose track of invoices and money, whereas for the manager, the problem is that he needs to use three different tools for one job. Clarity on the role and the type of company will help make your messages more precise.
  • The existence of a persona will also give your entire marketing team a common belief, so that every piece of marketing material made corresponds to your buyers’ preferences.

A complete buyer persona, when coupled with your company’s strategic objectives, will act as your marketing handbook, telling you exactly what you need to do and how much you need to do it, in order to generate the right number of leads, convert them into customers and generate sales for your business.

To learn how to create your buyer persona, read our how-to article. Otherwise, to learn about the importance of buyer centricity in today’s marketing, download our whitepaper below. 

The Buyer's Journey

Topics: b2b marketing buyer personas buyer behaviour buyer centricity