How to Harness the Power of Personas for Radically Relevant B2B Marketing

Transcription

1 How to Harness the Power of Personas for Radically Relevant B2B Marketing Ardath Albee & Katie Martell

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3 HOUSEKEEPING 3 Please keep all hands & arms inside the webinar at all times. YES, Virginia there will be a recording. Give us about 48 hours.? Got a ques=on? Ask it! Q&A at the end. Please tweet! #PowerofPersonas Tweet & win! Include hashtag #PowerofPersonas to win one of THREE copies of Ardath s book!

4 Ardath Albee CEO, Marketing Interactions Inc 30+ years of business management and marketing expertise Strategist, storyteller, speaker, blogger, teacher, content geek Obsessed with helping companies become relevant Digital Relevance and emarketing Strategies for the Complex Sale Woman to Watch by FierceCMO 50 Most Influential People in Sales Lead Katie Martell Co-Founder & CMO, Cintell On a mission to help companies better understand their buyers Cintell world s first persona management platform Focus on B2B marketing technology + strategy American Marketing Association Board

5 Agenda Today s B2B sales/marketing world Why personas fail Essential components Getting buy-in internally Putting personas into practice Q&A Tweet to win:

6 What s going on in B2B marketing?

7 More technology than ever (2,000) More budget (up 4%) More top-line responsibility More of the purchase journey (50-90%) More buyers to serve (5-7 avg) More content across more channels

8 It s easy to lose sight of who this is all for in the first place.

9 MOST COMPANIES ARE THE CENTER OF THEIR OWN UNIVERSE

10 60% of B2B orgs admit they don t really understand or know their buyers. -SiriusDecisions

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13 The root of the matter Leading B2B Marketing Responsibilities in 2 years: Understanding buyers 85% Marketing technology tools Market/competitor analysis 75% 76% Thought leadership Lead generation 74% 73% According to B2B Marketers Worldwide as of Nov 2014, via ITSMA The New Architecture of Marketing Talent, Dec 9, 2014

14 The company that understands its buyers best, wins. (PSST: this is a really tweetable moment.)

15 OUR EMPLOYEES ARE LIKE HOSTAGES SUFFERING FROM STOCKHOLM SYNDROME THEY TAKE ON THE WORLDVIEW OF THEIR EMPLOYER AND FORGET WHAT IT S LIKE TO BE A REGULAR PERSON - ADAM RICHARDSON, FINANCIAL ENGINES

16 FLIP THE MODEL PRODUCT ORIENTED CUSTOMER CENTRIC Product-driven marketing. Fabricate/force consumers. Customer-driven strategy. Listen, empathy, relevance.

17 To win in the age of the customer, B2B marketers need to drive customer intelligence into all areas of the business. - Laura Ramos Forrester

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20 POLL What is the state of personas at your organiza=on? A. We have no personas, and no plans to. B. We have no personas, but are planning to create them. C. We have personas, they could use some updamng. D. We have personas, and are confident in them.

21 73% have personas, or plan to in % aren t using buyer personas effectively. -ITSMA

22 77% 72% of personas deemed extremely or very effective are based on new external research. of ineffective personas are created from existing data only. - B2P Partners 2015

23 Personas fail when they: 1. Are too shallow 2. Are kept in the dark 3. Become out of date 4. Have no buy-in 5. Can t translate to tactics 6. Don t account for the committee 7. Contain useless information 8. Are created in a bubble

24 Our Personas Lack Clarity in Application

25 Perspectives on a SaaS Project Management Solution Product R&D HR IT Finance Harry wants to shorten time to market with global collaboration Jane is worried that lack of user adoption will derail the project Tom is unsure the security of the solution will protect the IP Mark is worried about TCO given concerns of the others

26 Each Persona Will Need A Different Story Harry Impact on product design with global teams Jane Ease of use and intuimveness of the solumon Tom Security story about how the system defends against data breach Mark Economies of scale, global support, Mme to value

27 But Overlays Will Need to Happen Tom Jane What if user training takes longer than 2 weeks? What are the options to strengthen security protocols? Mark What s the worst case scenario? Harry will need to answer questions

28 9 Components of a Buyer Persona 1. A Day in the Life 2. Objectives / Problems 3. Orientation 4. Obstacles 5. Questions 6. Preferences 7. Keywords & Phrases 8. Engagement Scenarios

29 Questions Create Links to Build the Buyer s Story Why should I care? Why isn t my workaround good enough? What will happen if I do nothing? What are my competitors doing? What do the experts say? What are best practices? What are my choices? Who has the expertise to help? What s the payoff? What else does it impact? What if something goes sideways? How can I be sure you re the best choice?

30 Context

31 Answering Questions Facilitates Conversations How can our product design teams shorten time to market? How a global collaboration platform helps designers iterate faster. Okay, that s got possibilities, but my IT guy is sticky about security, give the growth in data breaches. What you need to know about security for global collaboration solutions. Got it, thanks. But I m going to get pushback on how easy it is to drive adoption from HR. We re hosting a webinar about how to fast track user adoption with our gamification features

32 Accelerate Micro Conversions At each step along the way What should your buyer do next?

33 Where is the love? Marketers say their biggest frustration with buyer personas is that they are not respected or appreciated.

34 You + Sales = <3? 1. Build trust 2. Show them the WIIFM 3. Start with your sales BFF 4. Remind them of your common goal htp:// itsma- gexng- sales- support- for- buyer- personas/

35 Ex 1: Construction Software Company Customer intelligence research initiative Qualitative interviews Tone, word choice in voice of customer 100+ new blog post ideas In-depth personas Shared companywide w/ Cintell

36 Ex 2: Enterprise Software Company Embed personas in the workflow of each department Product management software Marketing automation system (tags against prospects which guide nurture programs and tags on content) Sales process in Salesforce (decks and propositions that map to each persona) Customer success process (mapped in each account plan)

37 Thank Liberate personas from static, hard-to-find PDF s. Create SmartPersonas for FREE at