A few articles have appeared recently touting the death of Buyer Personas, which prompted me to ask Jim Ninivaggi, Sales Enablement service lead from SiriusDecisions about whether this was really true. According to Jim, applying B2C persona concepts, where you name each buyer - Mike, Zoe, Geoff, and then describe key aspects about their life – their marital status, how many kids they have, the house they own, cars they drive, - this is less than applicable to your B2B sales and marketing efforts. Each persona could potentially initiate the buying journey. decoy? MORE >>

And that understanding often starts with the development of buyer personas. According to Adelle Revella, who has been using buyer personas to market technology products for more than 20 years, a buyer persona is: "a short biography of the typical customer, not just a job description but a person description. The buyer persona profile gives you a chance to truly empathize with target buyers, to step out of your role as someone who wants to promote a product and see, through your buyers' eyes, the circumstances that drive their decision process." MORE >>

Sales enablement software prods companies to focus on customers’ buying process. They’re developing buyer personas (based on past experiences) and mapping their best customers’ buying processes to identify points where they can influence the ultimate outcome of the sale. Product teams incorporate customer feedback throughout the development process. On the product development front, product teams are increasingly using a process called “customer development&# that calls for learning and iterating rather than linear execution.  MORE >>

  There are three central aspects to Buyer Experience Design that provide the necessary roadmap: Confluence of Buyer Insights, Buyer Persona Development, and Buyer Experience Journey :  This is the bed rock of understanding that offers insight on whom your buyers are, the buying journey they take within their own organizations as well as yours and competitors, and the sequential views that are critical to understanding the current buyer experience.  Cover via Amazon. The expression “monumental shift” is a powerful one.  MORE >>

In order to develop the strategy, you’ll need to do some research to determine a few things about your consumers. For example, where are they in the buying process and what kinds of content do they prefer to consume (video, blog posts, comments, tweets, etc). Within a content strategy you can outline guidelines,standards, quality control processes, branding, voice tone and messaging, so that anyone creating content of any format has some rules for the road. What does the current content creation process look like? If you want to make your life easier, yes. On time. MORE >>