Build Winning B2B Sales Teams: Audience Personas for Procurement Decisions
Achim Klor
May 3, 2024
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2 min read
TL;DR
Buyer personas that focus solely on demographics miss the mark when connecting with B2B procurement teams. Personas focused on the “buying audience” provide added insight into understanding their motivations, pain points, and how and when they buy B2B tech. This article outlines how you can create “audience personas” that give your sales team a better chance at connecting with the procurement team.
Key Takeaways
Demographics Aren’t Enough: Demographics like age and income fail to capture the complexities of B2B procurement teams, leading to missed opportunities and ineffective sales strategies.
Psychographics Reveal Decision Criteria: Understanding the team’s psychology and motivations allows for targeted messaging that resonates with each member, fostering smoother internal buy-in and sales cycle.
Boost Lead Generation & ROI: Audience personas target everyone on the decision-making team. That enables you to create messaging for the entire team and tailor content for each team member.
Empower Champions & Close Deals Efficiently: Audience personas also provide the insight to tailor information for internal champions. They can clearly communicate your solution’s differentiated value, reducing friction, back-and-forth, and miscommunication.
Procurement decisions are complex and lengthy, involving a team with diverse and sometimes conflicting priorities.
In my experience, the traditional B2B sales approach is flawed because it focuses on a single person who isn’t always the decision-maker. Complex B2B purchases involve a series of decisions made by various team members. To win, companies must understand the “buying committee” and adapt their approach. Many procurement teams also have a champion who connects them with the vendor.
While individual buyer personas can be useful for certain marketing programs, they often miss the mark when it comes to understanding the dynamics of the procurement team as a whole.
Buyer personas that clarify how the audience (the buying team) makes purchase decisions provide a holistic view of the team’s psychology and can help you tailor your approach for maximum impact. Don’t rely solely on demographics—that’s a mistake.
Go Beyond Demographics to Win B2B Tech Sales
Unfortunately, most buyer personas are bullshit. They focus too heavily on demographics like age, title, income, gender, etc. They’re almost always aspirational and rarely tested.
And because they are focused on one person, they don’t capture the complexities of B2B procurement teams or help them navigate internal hurdles like budget approvals and risk management. Too often they are focused on the buyer, not the buying decision.
According to Adele Revella, likely THE authority on buyer personas, most B2B companies merely have snippets of buying intent information. Rarely do they truly know who will listen, what they want, and why they prefer the competition.
If we forget to pay attention to how our customer’s make their buying decision, we’re missing a huge piece of the puzzle. Jeff Goldenberg, Abacus
Here’s why relying on demographics alone is a losing strategy:
Oversimplification: Demographics paint a broad brushstroke, failing to capture the nuances within a team. A “Procurement Manager” title doesn’t reveal if they prioritize cost-savings or data security.
Misses the Collective Mindset: Procurement teams operate as a unit with shared goals (think cost reduction, efficiency) and concerns (like mitigating risk). They make consensus and committee decisions. Understanding these shared motivations is key to crafting relevant messages.
Ignores Internal Dynamics: Different team members have varying priorities. A champion who sees the value of your solution might need data to convince the folks on their team who are budget-conscious, risk-averse, etc.
That said, when you couple demographics with the qualitative and quantitative insights of psychographics (including firmographics), you have a deeper understanding of a procurement team’s inner workings. You can tailor your message and content for each member, leading to better sales conversations.
Sales and marketing teams have to substantially improve their skills in guiding buying teams. The days of sophomoric ROI justifications are over. Purchases are not made based on a salesperson’s glib assertion of a rapid payback, and most salespeople today simply receive some orders. Precious few actually navigate these complexities to win them.
B2B marketing campaigns often fail to generate high-quality leads because they rely on assumptions instead of real-world customer insight. Sales and marketing end up missing the mark on the specific needs of B2B procurement teams.
Without deep and insightful conversations with your best-fit customers, you can't paint a full picture of how procurement teams find and purchase your solution.
Yes, demographics are helpful and I’m not suggesting to discount them. But you also need the qualitative and quantitative insight that psychographics provide (I’m including firmographics here).
Audience personas can help:
Identify key decision-makers and influencers within the procurement team.
Target the right people with the right message to attract high-quality leads genuinely interested in your solution.
Tailor content and messaging for each member of the procurement team.
Maximize the impact of your marketing spend and deliver a better return on marketing investment.
Equip internal champions with the information they need to clearly explain your solution’s value proposition and address any concerns from other team members.
Create smoother buy-in.
Audience personas can help bridge the gap between your B2B tech solution and the complexities of procurement decisions. Understanding the motivations, challenges, and decision-making process, goes beyond demographic data and helps clarify your sales strategy. Instead of assuming your buyer is only interested in a feature list or product demo, your audience persona spells out what they want to see, who they will listen to, and whether or not they will shortlist you.
TIP: Don’t Boil the Ocean
Build your buyer persona with the buying audience in mind first. This way, you can see if the champion’s characteristics are already covered by the broader audience. Depending on the size of your business and product portfolio, you may only need one persona. As you grow your products and reach, you can scale the number of personas accordingly.
Case Study
Building Confidence Through Repositioning
Maximizer CRM, a well-established SaaS and OnPrem CRM player in the SMB space, faced a decline in market share due to a lack of differentiation in an ever-increasing crowded market.
Challenge
Regain market prominence and reclaim its value proposition for SMBs, particularly Financial Advisors and Wealth Managers.
Solution
Maximizer implemented a strategic repositioning campaign called “Grow With Confidence.” This campaign focused on:
Messaging Targeted to Specific Audience Persona: Developing messaging that resonated with SMBs, particularly within the Financial Services sector. Only one audience persona was needed since Financial Advisors and Wealth Managers shared virtually all the same features in Maximizer.
Simplified Product Offerings: Streamlining product features to ensure reliability, ease of use, and effectiveness.
Customer Success Focus: Shifting from a software provider to a growth partner, prioritizing customer success and operational efficiency.
Results
Increased Brand Awareness
200% increase in total MQLs (Marketing Qualified Leads).
160% increase in Net New MQLs.
Online reviews grew by over 400%, indicating positive customer reception.
Achieved leader status and ranked in the Top 50 Best Software for Sales on G2Crowd.
Enhanced Lead Generation
Month-over-month lead generation grew by a steady 20%.
Social media engagement skyrocketed from 1% to 8%.
Stronger Customer Relationships
Video testimonials emerged for the first time, showcasing customer satisfaction.
Fostered a loyal community around the brand.
Impact
The “Grow With Confidence” brand campaign not only revitalized Maximizer internally but also resonated deeply with customers, particularly in the Financial Services sector. This resulted in:
Sustainable Growth: Increased lead generation and social proof positioned Maximizer for long-term success.
Core Philosophy: “Grow With Confidence” became a guiding principle for the company.
Maximizer continues to benefit from Achim’s contributions, market research, strategy, positioning, and messaging for our financial services product. It’s still going strong.
How to Create Audience Personas for Procurement Teams
1. Gather Data
Conduct Interviews: Talk in-depth with each team member (decision-makers, and potential champions).
Distribute Surveys: Get broader insights from new procurement team members on their challenges, preferred information formats, and pain points.
Analyze Website Traffic Data: Understand what content resonates with procurement teams and identify areas of interest.
2. Pinpoint Shared Goals & Challenges
Leverage Industry Reports: Use industry reports and research (Gartner, Salesforce, G2, etc) to understand common challenges faced by B2B procurement teams.
Map the Buyer’s Journey: Plot the buyer’s journey for procurement teams in your target market. What are the key touchpoints and concerns they have throughout the evaluation process?
3. Map the Decision-Making Hierarchy
Identify the Hierarchy: During your interviews with key stakeholders, pinpoint the hierarchy within the procurement team. Who has final say? Who needs to be convinced?
Key elements to consider when building your audience persona:
Company Psychographics (incl. firmographics)
Understand the company culture: Is it risk-averse or an early adopter?
Analyze their risk tolerance and innovation appetite.
Shared Challenges & Pain Points
Identify common frustrations and hurdles faced by the procurement team.
Examples: streamlining processes, data security concerns, cost-saving measures.
Decision-Making Authority
Determine their level of influence on the final purchase decision.
Rank each member’s influence. Can someone kibosh the sale?
Information Consumption Habits
Understand how they prefer to receive information.
Examples: white papers, webinars, live demos, case studies.
Tips for Building Effective Audience Personas
Focus on Quality, Not Quantity: Create detailed personas for a few key procurement team members, not generic profiles for every role. 9/10 times one audience persona will suffice.
Seek Alignment Across Departments: Collaborate with your sales and customer success teams to gain insights into procurement team dynamics.
Continuously Refine: As you gather more data and interact with procurement teams, update your personas to reflect evolving needs and priorities.
How to Integrate Audience Personas with Content Marketing
Your audience personas hold the key to crafting content marketing that resonates with each member of the procurement team. Don’t just use them for sales—leverage them to build targeted content that solves their problems. Below are 4 ways audience personas can help guide your content marketing.
1. Create Targeted Content
Analyze information consumption habits and tailor content formats accordingly.
Example: White papers and reports for budget-conscious CPOs and webinars for champions who educate others on the team.
2. Address Specific Pain Points
Identify shared challenges and frustrations within the procurement team through your personas.
Use this knowledge to create content that directly addresses their pain points and showcases how your solution offers a valuable remedy.
Example: If cost-savings are a major concern, highlight the ROI potential of your solution with case studies and data-driven content.
3. Build Credibility and Trust
Use personas to understand the team’s level of technical expertise and risk aversion.
Cater content complexity to their specific needs.
Provide in-depth white papers, reports and product specifications for highly technical members. Offer user guides and explainer videos for less technical team members. This shows you understand their needs and builds trust.
4. Personalize Where Possible
While complete personalization might not be feasible for every piece of content, use persona insights to personalize elements like email subject lines. Adding their logo to pitch decks and proposals can also make a big impression.
Guide each team member through informative and relevant content that addresses their specific needs and concerns. By doing this, you position your B2B tech solution as the answer they’ve been looking for.
Final Thoughts
Building buyer personas that are focused on decision criteria is the key to connecting with B2B procurement teams. Audience personas can give you a deeper understanding of the motivations, decision-making processes, and preferred communication styles.
Your sales and marketing teams can also facilitate better sales conversations with targeted messaging and useful content that addresses the needs of each team member.
Remember that demographics alone won’t cut it. You need the qualitative and quantitative insights that psychographics provide.
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