Two Voids Buyer Personas Can Fill To Achieve Growth Strategies

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Lack of buyer insights and brand vision can doom growth strategies

On the minds of many CEOs entering 2022 is how to make business growth a top priority.  Especially after two years of an enduring COVID-19 pandemic.  While some industries have prospered, many have seen substantial losses.  With businesses facing endemic new realities, businesses are bent on growing.

A struggle for leaders is in aligning their teams and tactical operations with business growth strategies.  This includes their interactions with buyers and customers.   How well are these interactions aligned with business growth strategies?  A question that CEOs and leaders will need to ask. 

One view that leaders should look at is how to fill the void from creating growth strategies to having the organizations able to achieve them.  That void usually consists of two main variables.  One is a lack of understanding about buyers and customers.  The second is a lack of an articulate brand vision that both internal teams, as well as customers, can grasp. Two voids that require buyer insights and growth-focused buyer personas.

If we look at the first, the lack of buyer and customer understanding, this can create time-consuming fits and starts in implementing growth strategies.  The time is ill-afforded.  Critical buyer insights become essential to growth strategies meeting targets set. 

When buyer personas were first originated in 2001, they were designed to be strategic in discovering as well as validating business growth strategies.  Some of the earliest usages of buyer insights research and buyer persona development were exploring new market segments and customer opportunities.  For instance, one of the first companies to make use of buyer persona development invalidated a new market segment push expected to cost $3 million upfront to enter.   However, it led to a previously undiscovered new market and customer opportunity as well as a new buyer persona, which allowed them to expand their market presence by $25 million in the first two years.

This is an example of how you connect buyer insights research as well as buyer personas to solving business growth problems. You bet the CEO was happy for it achieved mitigating risks when implementing new business growth strategies.  

The second void to fill is that of rallying your internal teams to articulate a brand vision.  A brand vision that is buyer-focused.  In the omnichannel world of buyer interactions today, a brand vision has more potential to be out of alignment with growth strategies.  Whereby, buyers encounter numerous visions of a brand.  What they may read online versus what they may hear from a customer support representative about the brand can end up being vastly different. 

When both the lack of buyer understanding and an inarticulate brand vision is out of alignment with buyers and growth strategies, this results in companies missing the mark with their buyers and customers.  For instance, content produced often goes unread and unused for it fails to communicate something meaningful to buyers.  And fails to articulate a vision buyers can expect from a brand. 

Executives today should take heed to align business growth strategies with buyer-focused understanding. Investing in buyer insights research and buyer persona development to execute on new growth opportunities.  And to develop a brand vision that both their organizations and buyers can embrace. 

Republished with author's permission from original post.

Tony Zambito
Tony is the founder and leading authority in buyer insights for B2B Marketing and Sales. In 2001, Tony founded the concept of "buyer persona" and established the first buyer persona development methodology. This innovation has helped leading companies gain a deeper understanding of their buyers resulting in revenue performance. Tony has empowered Fortune 100 organizations with operationalizing buyer personas to communicate deep buyer insights that tell the story of their buyer. He holds a B.S. in Business and an M.B.A. in Marketing Management.

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