Marketing and Sales Leaders Must Build Core Competency of Understanding Buyer Persona Goals
We have heard the terms “organizational DNA” or “company DNA” often in attempts to articulate what an organization’s culture may be like. Sometimes, culture and DNA are used interchangeably. If we get scientific, we know that DNA can have a higher degree of specificity than let’s say norms associated with culture.
When it comes to buyer goals, organizations today will need to get more specific about encoding understanding of buyer persona goals into their marketing and sales capabilities.
DNA, as we know from the study of biology, provides biological instructions on how we as human beings create, function, and reproduce. Similarly, organizations need specific instructions, or we may call them insights, infused into their DNA in order to create, function, innovate, and replicate successes with buyers. Without such DNA-type instructions or insights, it will make it very difficult for marketing and sales capabilities to evolve.
In the misfortunes of life, DNA instruction abnormalities can have drastic, sometimes catastrophic, biological effects. Far too often, organizations, be they B2B or B2C, can lack in their understanding of buyer goals. In essence, lacking the DNA instructions on how to connect with buyers, innovate in ways that help buyers, and develop profitable go-to-market strategies.
Three Competencies To Develop
Many marketing and sales leaders find it challenging how to actually develop the code by which understanding buyer goals is achieved. And to ensure that a unique in-depth understanding of buyer goals is not simply glossed over. There are three DNA-like competencies leaders can focus on:
1 – Buyer Insights Gathering
What separates companies from those who have been able to embed or encode understanding buyer goals into their organization’s DNA, from those who do not, is the function of gathering buyer insights is already a part of their DNA. Companies who place value on gathering buyer insights to help inform how to attract, help, and retain buyers are establishing how their company is hard wired towards the buyer. As we look to the future, we will see more organizations begin to adopt a Buyer Insights Management mindset.
2 – Develop Goal-Directed Buyer Personas
The foundations of user and buyer personas rest on the concept of understanding the multi-variate goals of users or buyers. Well-researched and crafted buyer personas tell the insightful story of how the goals of buyers arise and how they affect the choices and decisions buyers make. Unfortunately, many organizations have experienced buyer personas in name only. Meaning they were not researched adequately nor were they developed on the goal-directed principles personas originated from. The results have been far too many buyer personas created, in name only, based on profiling sales-type intelligence versus goal-based insights.
In the context of DNA, this can be very problematic. Unintentionally, organizations can be hard-wiring DNA-type instructions that are incorrect and causes companies to develop out-of-synch approaches to their buyers.
3 – Leveraging and Informing Buyer Strategies
Personas and Buyer Personas were invented to help organizations make informed decisions on product design or buyer strategies. They create organizational DNA knowledge on how to map back to informing insights about your user or buyer goals. Helping leaders and teams to make the right decisions and have the right Buyer Mindset needed to embed Buyer Persona Goals into their organization.
(I have not been a fan of the term “operationalizing buyer personas” the past decade. My experience with the term and mindset is buyer personas were pushed into marketing or sales operations as a checklist item. Especially those that were developed in name only and are really buyer profiles based on sales intelligence. Thus, never becoming part of an organization’s DNA.)
By developing these three competencies, leaders can begin to cement the building blocks and instructions on how to make Buyer Persona Goals central to their organization’s DNA. Leading to informing insights and goal-directed buyer strategies designed to help buyers and in turn – help their organizations grow.
