Introduction
You and your team are already familiar with buyer personas, essential for effective messaging and content creation. However, many B2B marketing teams aren’t fully leveraging advanced targeting, resulting in potential media waste and lower quality inquiries. With the average buying committee comprising more than 11 people* (*Source: LinkedIn), it’s crucial to refine your marketing efforts and improve targeting precision.
Why Create Data-Driven Personas?
In B2B marketing, using data effectively means focusing sharply on specific job functions, specialties and technographic details, not just broad persona demographics. Good targeting ensures your message reaches the right decision-makers by thoroughly mapping out roles and influences within buying committees so you can craft personas that genuinely reflect how decisions are made in organizations.
5 Key Questions for Building Powerful B2B Personas
- What Are Their Primary Pain Points?
- Understand your audience’s challenges through feedback from SMEs, channel partners and customers.
TIP: Use AI to quickly establish a basic persona profile. For diverse personas, consider organizing your audience by mindsets. This approach allows for more targeted media campaigns with fewer segments, potentially improving KPIs.
- Understand your audience’s challenges through feedback from SMEs, channel partners and customers.
- What Solutions Are They Currently Using?
- Analyze the technologies and platforms used by your target personas to identify prerequisites for your product or solution and look for patterns.
TIP: Use platforms like ZoomInfo, or for life sciences, IQVIA and Definitive Healthcare to gather insights into the technologies your audience uses.
- Analyze the technologies and platforms used by your target personas to identify prerequisites for your product or solution and look for patterns.
- Where Do They Work and Why Does It Matter?
- Account characteristics matter. To be effective, map account segments alongside persona segments. For example, an IT director at a small plant and one at a large enterprise have different purchasing roles, just as a nephrologist at a private clinic has a different circle of influence than one at a large hospital. Tailor your approach by understanding specific decision-making contexts and work environments.
TIP: Discuss with your sales team which accounts are most successful and why. Use this feedback to refine your Ideal Customer Profile, incorporating actionable data like company size, technographics and geo-location to enhance media targeting precision.
- Account characteristics matter. To be effective, map account segments alongside persona segments. For example, an IT director at a small plant and one at a large enterprise have different purchasing roles, just as a nephrologist at a private clinic has a different circle of influence than one at a large hospital. Tailor your approach by understanding specific decision-making contexts and work environments.
- How Do They Consume Information?
- Find out which channels and formats your audience prefers, like industry websites, events or social media. This helps ensure your marketing efforts reach them where they’re most engaged.
TIP: Analyze your organic traffic for referral patterns and utilize AI and tools like NetLine’s Audience Navigator to understand data and identify high-value content your audience engages with.
- Find out which channels and formats your audience prefers, like industry websites, events or social media. This helps ensure your marketing efforts reach them where they’re most engaged.
- Who Are the Key Decision-Makers?
- Identify all stakeholders involved in the buying process, such as influencers, decision-makers and gatekeepers, to tailor your message to their specific concerns and interests.
TIP: Maximize success by focusing your limited personalization resources on balancing brand awareness and demand generation with key project champions and decision-makers who significantly impact your pipeline.
- Identify all stakeholders involved in the buying process, such as influencers, decision-makers and gatekeepers, to tailor your message to their specific concerns and interests.
Advanced Targeting Techniques
- Behavioral Data: Use insights from web analytics and engagement metrics to understand what content resonates with your audience
- Firmographic Data: Leverage information about the company’s size, industry and market position to tailor your approach
- Technographic Data: Identify the technologies and platforms your target companies are already using to position your solution as a seamless addition
- Intent Data: Utilize intent data to identify potential customers who are actively researching or showing interest in topics related to your solutions
Conclusion
Using advanced data to refine traditional buyer personas can level up your marketing game. With data-driven personas, you get a sharper image of who you’re targeting, making your marketing strategies more personal and effective. By refining these personas and utilizing sophisticated targeting, you can optimize media spend, enhance lead quality and achieve better business results. Encourage your team to use data for dynamic, evolving personas, positioning your marketing for greater precision and impact.
