There’s a lot of ‘buzz’ about Buyer Personas and the Buyers Journey. But like most hot topics, there are variations on what each of those things mean and how to engage the concepts.

Most companies agree with the principles but haven’t committed to implementing a strategy that accommodates all aspects of the interdependent model.

Those that try to incorporate the concepts soon realize the enormity of the project. There are many aspects to consider and most don’t know where to start.

This is magnified further for software companies as we have more obstacles to face than most industries. We have direct competitors like everyone else, but we also compete with Free Tools, Open-Source, Outsourced Custom Development and In-House Development.

Many software companies are in the troublesome position of needing to educate buyers that purchasing a fully developed commercial solution is the right approach before they even start competing with actual competitors attempting to solve the same problem. 

This 3-part series on How Software Companies Can Maximize Content for Lead Generation will define some of the concepts and provide a method for connecting the initiatives that result in a higher volume, of higher quality, Marketing Qualified Leads (MQL’s).

The 3-part Series will cover:

• Defining Buyer Personas for Content Development
• Prioritizing Content Development for the Buyers Journey
• Asking Better Questions at Gated Content

Defining Buyer Personas for Content Development

A common approach to developing Buyer Personas is to focus on WHO researches and purchases solutions. There’s a belief that if we better understand the job functions, challenges and goals of the individual, we’ll better know how to speak to them with our content.

That approach makes sense as it’s a ‘Persona’. But I argue it’s not the best place to focus, as most organizations only have generic and superficial information about the individual. They don’t possess profile insights that can be leveraged during content development. That generic understanding of the individual may be nice to pepper-in as a way to communicate we understand their world; but it doesn’t speak to the actual events and conditions that lead to a budgeted project for a specific problem.

I posit we should put a greater focus on WHY our customers need a solution in conjunction with HOW individuals will research those goals. 

My first experience with defining Buyer Personas and asking the WHY & HOW question started a few years ago when I was tasked with increasing sales for a company that provided a complex software solution.

I reviewed the profiles of their customers and found that a 100% of the organizations that adopted their solution had developed a ‘Centralized Build Team’ (CBT), an operational function of software development. I also discovered the driving event for the CBT initiative varied by industry. The Financial sector needed an audit trail. The Health Insurance sector needed the ability to adapt to new regulations more quickly.

I created a document describing their ‘Ideal Custom Profile’ (ICP) and the events that led to the CBT initiative, broken out by industry.

We took this information and prioritized content development around the ICP.

We tracked the performance of our new content and discovered we’d missed something: The individuals doing research for the CBT initiative weren’t researching CBT as a topic. They were researching broader questions about Build vs. Buy and Open Source vs. Commercial. Entirely different educational tracks.

We developed additional content that addressed the CBT commonality AND the research events that occurred once organizations started exploring options. That’s when we started to see the results we were hoping for.

This process led me to believe that the best practice for defining Buyer Personas, as it relates to content development, is to break the Buyer Personas into 2 parts:

• Ideal Company Profiles (ICP): Specific challenges by industry and the events that led to a funded project to solve specific challenges
• Research Events (RE): How companies will research and what they’ll discover as they research.

Additional thoughts on Research Events: There’s a lot of noise out there and broader industry trends can overlap with our specific message. If we know that ‘what they discover’ may sway them off our educational path, we address those topics within our content and keep them going the direction we want them to go.

Focusing on the WHY and HOW when developing Buyer Personas allows us to prioritize content development based on an accurate assessment of:

• The reason there’s a funded project or what will lead to a funded project
• Predicting what they’ll discover as they research solutions

If we know why they have a budget and what they’ll find when they explore options for that project, we’ll use content to point them the right direction at every stage of the Buyers Journey. We’ll reduce objections down the road because we’ll provide answers before objections arise. We’ll help them ask the right questions before they look for answers in the wrong place.

Defining Buyer Personas for Content Development allows us to speak to why the Buyers Journey started, what happens while on the journey, and most importantly, puts us in the position of leading them to the journey’s end: becoming a high quality MQL.