Buyer Persona Research and Development

Get to know and understand your B2B buyers and customers

Personas are descriptive summaries or characterizations of key customer groups. Using buyer persona research to develop customer profiles can help to really bring your target audiences to life, and inform your strategies for meaningful, tailored propositions and engagement.

Bringing your buyers to life through the development of their profiles through the use of our buyer persona research can help your organization to:

  • Make better choices about who to target or focus resources on
  • Talk to prospective customer groups in ways that are relevant and impactful
  • Guide on decisions on future propositions and marketing
 

Our approach: A 3-step process to buyer persona development

Buyer Persona Research & Development: Getting to know and understand your b2b buyers

1. Identify and understand distinct groups of buyers

We typically start buyer persona research with our clients in one of two ways:

  • Qualitative customer persona research, through internal workshops and/or in-depth research with your target audiences

  • Quantitative customer persona research, through a segmentation program to identify groups within your customer base or overall market which are statistically unique (be that based on firmographics, demographics, behaviors, attitudes or needs – or a combination of these factors)

Buyer Persona Research

2. Transform each group (or segment) into a single persona

  • Once the distinct groups/segments have been identified, it is critical to develop a deeper understanding of their mindset, needs and behaviors. We conduct qualitative ‘deep dive’ research, building on our existing knowledge of each persona.

  • The benefit of personas over “faceless” groups or segments is that human beings resonate more strongly with something that is personified. The next stage therefore is to attribute each group to a single character, or person with their own name, image and identity. It is important to understand these personas as a “best fit” characterization – rather than a set of specific characteristics that every customer in that group must perfectly embody.

Buyer Persona Research & Development: Getting to know and understand your b2b buyers

3. Bring personas to life and introduce them to your organization

  • It is now time to put yourself in the shoes of each persona. What does a day in their life look like? What kind of suppliers do they like to work with? What are their ambitions within their job role?

  • Visualization and visibility of personas are crucial, to ensure they are embedded within your organization and deliver value to your teams. Popular examples of creative output include profile posters, interactive PDF guides, and video summaries. The ultimate goal here is that your personas are an ever-present reminder for your colleagues of the voice and experience of your different buyers.

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Case study: Understanding the buyer journey and building personas and value propositions for Sodexo

Sodexo, a world-leader in food service and facilities management, places insight at the core of their marketing strategy. The company recognizes the importance of leveraging primary research to ensure that service offers meet the needs of the target market, with all their business decisions born out of research insights.

While regularly monitoring market and consumer trends, Sodexo partnered with B2B International to help them understand typical buyer journeys and personas across four different business units.

Find out how these insights were used to inform top of the funnel marketing strategies, sales engagement strategies during the purchase process, and ensuring that the ongoing relationship throughout the contract period is nurtured in order to encourage customer satisfaction and loyalty.

Read full case study >

buyer persona research

 

Case study: Using customer needs and persona research to support Ligentia’s development of their global strategy

Ligentia is an international supply chain solutions provider focused on data driven supply chains. With innovation and evolution being core to Ligentia’s growth, the business is acutely aware that primary research among customers and prospects is key in supporting strategic development.

Ligentia needed to validate key themes with a customer and market view as part of a planned refresh of the brand and build out of the product portfolio and marketing collateral to support the next chapter of global growth, to ensure that all developments were based on real market requirements and needs.

Ligentia required research to better understand market requirements and needs. Not only did this research need to investigate the impact of trends beyond COVID-19, but it was also necessary to predict future challenges and how customers are looking to change their operations in response to these so that Ligentia could continue to develop market-leading solutions and services.

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buyer persona research case study

 

Case study: Powering tailored products, services and content through B2B persona research for AgriFutures Australia

AgriFutures Australia is an Australian Government Statutory Authority at the heart of the Australian rural industries. AgriFutures Australia’s vision is to grow the long-term prosperity of Austrlian rural industries by focusing on research and development.

The organization recognizes the importance of leveraging primary research to ensure that their efforts meet the needs of their target markets. AgriFutures Australia partnered with B2B International to better understand and profile the stakeholders that they serve.

Find out how the research helped AgriFutures Australia better understand the types of information their stakeholders consume and create more engaging content and allocate its marketing budget and resources more efficiently.

Read full case study >

B2B persona research case study

 

Our Clients

Heineken
Dow Jones
Stanley Tools
AkzoNobel
BASF
Henkel
Samsung
Microsoft
 

Activation services: Helping you get the most out of your research investment

personas
Persona Profiling
Bring your customers to life and gain a deeper understanding of their needs, challenges and behaviors in order to more effectively market to them.
sales battlecards
Sales Battlecards
A “cheat sheet” used by account management and sales teams for engaging with a customer or prospect.
Interactive PDF Guides
Engaging and informative documents for use across your organization, to help teams across the business get to know each persona.
B2B Spotlight
Video Summaries
Bite-sized animated or live action videos, that can be shared and viewed across your organization, to help introduce the personas and bring them to life.
 

B2B Insights and Viewpoints: What we’ve learned from doing buyer persona research

 
How to Research, Develop and Activate Buyer Personas in B2B
This article outlines seven key points to bear in mind when researching, developing and activating B2B buyer personas in your organization.
 
customer journey mapping
Buyer Journey Mapping in B2B Markets
How to use B2B buyer journey mapping to understand each purchase stage and tailor your strategies for effective customer engagement.
Get in touch to find out how you can benefit from buyer persona research and development
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