HOW TO CREATE INSIGHTFUL & ACTIONABLE

BUYER PERSONAS
Knowing your buyers is key to making informed sales and
marketing decisions. That’s why organizations are increasingly
making buyer personas a strategic priority for their organization.
But to get maximum value out of your buyer personas, you
need to think about how to build them. Here’s why:

The INTEREST in buyer personas is growing

44%
have buyer
29%
will in next
27%
no buyer
BUT The number of
marketers who use them
EFFECTIVELY is not.1
personas 12 months persona

0% Extremely

HOW 15% Very

uyer personas EFFECTIVE?

B ll
83% Somewhat
are not a ally. 2% Not at all
qu
created e

Out of the three popular methodologies,

ONLY INTERVIEWING BUYERS tells you something you don’t already know.

Consult Internal Stakeholders

SOURCE: Sales team, product/marketing
team, customer support team, etc.
1 Leverage Familiar Tools
SOURCE: Online surveys, social media, web
research, analyst reports, web analytics, etc.
2
PROS: Fast and simple; makes it easy to PROS: Low cost, statistical data, validates
leverage existing knowledge existing opinions

CONS: Provides a limited and CONS: Misses offline buying

recycled view of what you behavior; focuses on historical
already know about your buyers; behavior and responses to
no new insights internally generated questions

INTERVIEW REAL BUYERS

SOURCE: Buyers who recently evaluated
your solution or your competitors’, etc.
3
If you don’t, you may
PROS: Provides in-depth and non-obvious
details about how, when and why buyers
be heading in the
make the decision you want to influence WRONG DIRECTION
CONS: Requires strong listening and
at great cost to your
interviewing skills organization.

Interviewing real
buyers led one CMO to
an astounding discovery –
current marketing and sales
70%
HAD NO IMPACT
40%
HAD NO IMPACT
spend wasn’t working:2
Marketing ON THE BUYING Sales Efforts ON THE BUYING
Budget DECISION DECISION

5 Rings of Buying Insight™ reveal buyers in the

CONTEXT OF THE DECISION YOU WANT TO INFLUENCE,
eliminating irrelevant data and reducing the number of buyer personas.

PRIORITY SUCCESS PERCEIVED THE BUYER’S DECISION

INITIATIVES FACTORS BARRIERS JOURNEY CRITERIA

Reveals why some Reveals what Reveals why some Reveals which Reveals what
buyers make your buyers expect buyers wouldn’t buyers are involved criteria buyers use
solution category a to change after perceive your in the decision and to evaluate solution
strategic priority while implementing company or what resources they options and make
others choose the your solution, solution as their trust to guide their a purchasing
status quo. and why. best option. decisions. decision, and why.

“Despite what “It has to be easy to

“Regulations in our
all the vendors were use. That means being
industry just got a lot
saying, we didn’t find it able to complete the online
stricter. We needed a more
to be more cost-effective. transaction without having
reliable way to prove that
So we decided to to download and install
we were complying for
do nothing.” any plug-ins.”
audit purposes.”
“Our goal is to
eliminate human “Anything that
processing errors in can help me to create
client contracts so that the business case and
we reduce our legal demonstrate ROI to
exposure.” my executive team is
really helpful.”

The insights you gather from buyer interviews are HIGHLY ACTIONABLE.
You’ll know precisely:

WHO WHAT WHEN WHERE HOW WHY

you need to information buyers are to reach to create a your marketing
persuade within they need to most likely to buyers with persuasive and sales plan
the buyer’s make their be receptive to your marketing argument for is the best
organization purchasing your message content purchasing course of action
decision your solution

THE BIG PAYOFF FOR MARKETING:

RESPECT
By channeling the buyer’s authentic voice – clearly, accurately and
persuasively – the buyer persona gives marketing the confidence to say,
“This is what really matters to our buyers. So here’s the plan.”

SHARE THIS INFOGRAPHIC: PRESENTED BY:

Adele Revella, President, Buyer Persona Institute
Gordana Stok, Buyer Persona Institute Certified Practitioner

Learn more about Buyer Personas.

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1 ITSMA Survey: Increasing Relevance with Personas and B2I Marketing, March 2014
2 “The B2B Customer Decision Journey: The Route to Increased Sales,” Forbes Magazine.

©2014 Buyer Persona Institute. 5 Rings of Buying Insight™ is a trademark of Buyer Persona
Institute. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution.