Maintaining B2B Customer Relationships | 7 min read | Published February 07, 2021

Understanding B2B Buyer Personas: 3 Common Mistakes You’re Probably Making

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B2B Buying Personas are an important and irreplaceable resource for driving sales and building a deeper, trusting relationship with your consumer base.

Marketing to your chosen demographic is important, particularly for a growing business; choose the right target market and effectively market your product to those individuals, you’re on the path to success. It’s an essential component of the company business plan, but what is a B2B Buyer Persona, and why is it an important component of your company? What effects can misrepresenting Buyer Identity have on your business? 

In this article, we’ll discuss what B2B Buyer Personas are, why they’re important to business and the 3 Common Mistakes You’re Probably Making in your own business, as well as how to correct those oversights.

What are B2B Buyer Personas?

Business to Business (B2B) Buyer Personas are processes by which a business identifies and understands their consumers, allowing an effective approach to marketing that by extension, increases exposure and sales in their target market. While that may sound time-consuming and potentially expensive market research, a B2B Buyer Personas are a potential customer rather than actual people.

In essence, B2B Buyer Personas are target consumers. They represent the people you want to market to and as such, encompass a variety of potential needs and desires consumers of your product would request. Having an intricate understanding of these ‘customers’ is crucial to your marketing plan; it shapes which medium you choose, the tone of ads and the services you provide once contact is made.

“If commerce is the heart of business, then consumers are the lifeblood. You can’t do business or grow your brand without customers,” says Jacob Lyle, a writer at PaperFellows and Essay Help.

The 3 Common Mistakes You’re Probably Making

Sounds easy enough, right? You had a vision of your target market since the product was little more than an idea, and yet it isn’t selling. If this is the case, don’t worry. It’s a common fault in business marketing plans and is easily rectified. Like hundreds of others, you’re probably guilty of one of the 3 Common Mistakes listed below.

Read on to find out what these 3 Common Mistakes are and how to rectify them: 

Mistake #1 Idealizing Your Customer Base

You have the idea of who you want to market to and have fine tuned your practices with them in mind, but your sales and customer satisfaction are at an all time low. It’s frustrating, but it’s not the end of your business. Rather, it’s a lesson to learn from; the consumer that exists in ideology may not exist in reality and therefore, neither does their need for your product. You’re marketing to your own fantasy, and it’s driving away potential clients and consumers because they don’t feel the product is right for their own needs.

Instead of relying on personal perception or speculation, invest in data analyzing software and track how your customers search for information according to the key words in your industry. Pay particular attention to what your competitors are advertising and how they show up in search results. Use this data to your advantage; take on board how they’re finding your products and what they’re buying, then adjust your methods to appeal to other consumers like them. 

 

Mistake #2 Not Knowing Your Own Customers

Take a close look at your current customer base, how happy they are with your products and services, and which customer industries seem to be benefitting the most from your software solution.

For example, TeamSupport’s proprietary Customer Distress Index™ (CDI) looks at all the interactions throughout the multiple contact points of a single corporate customer to determine their level of satisfaction, happiness, and level of frustration. The CDI can also be compared to all of the client’s other customers to develop a baseline of success and outliers to determine if they are having a higher level of distress comparably. By using this tool, you can become more proactive about the health of your customer relationships and better position them for account renewals and expansion.

That will give you a solid start to building your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP).

 

Mistake #3 Relying Solely on Data Analysis

Digitally collected information is a convenient and versatile pool of data but relying entirely on computer-collated preferences has flaws; you don’t know why someone bought a product or software solution, nor if it is an unusual purchase or an unusual one for their demographic. Wherever possible, talk to your consumers or get direct feedback using questionnaires. Direct customer relations not only make your company more personable and boost customer satisfaction, you also get first-hand and often emotive data machine learning cannot collate so easily.

 Whether you have an established business or are just starting out, B2B Buying Personas are an important and irreplaceable resource not only for driving sales, but building a deeper, trusting relationship with your consumer base.

 

Katherine Rundell

 

About Katherine Rundell

Katherine Rundell writes Buyer Personas alongside proofreading for various writing services.

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