Researching Buyers and How They Buy
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Transcript of Researching Buyers and How They Buy
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Researching Buyers and How They Buy
Decision Maker Gate Keeper
End User Influencer
Advocate Approver
Influencer Supporter
www.akoonu.com
Content
»Buyer Personas and Journey Maps
»Organizing your audience
»Building your personas and maps
»Best practices for your research
»Buyer-‐centric marketing toolkit
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Buyer PersonasAggregate representations of the actual buyers influencing or making decisions about your solutions and are based on real people, insights, and experiences.
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! "Journey Maps
Descriptions of the steps – from your buyers’ point of view – they execute from initial consideration of a solution to purchase decision and finally to implementing and using the product or service.
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Why Personas and Journey Maps?
Who What Why Where When How
Personas
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Who is involved in purchase process
What they care about as people and professionals
What are the buyers’
motivations
Where they seek
information
How they prefer to be interacted
with
JourneyMaps
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The roles people play in the purchase
process
What are the needs each step of the
way
When is best time to
engage with each person
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They provide in-depth understanding of buyers and how they buy.
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ORGANIZING YOUR PERSONAS AND JOURNEYS
Decision Maker Gate KeeperAdvocate Approver Influencer Supporter
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Lines of Business
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Sets of one or more highly related products or services which fulfill a particular customer business need.
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Products
Services
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Market Segments
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Groupings of prospective companies based on shared characteristics that have the same needs and behave in the same way through a buying process.
Line of Business
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Market Segmentation – B2C
Demographics Psychographics Geographic Behavioral
Based on personalattributes of consumer.
Based on motivations of the consumer.
Based on definedgeographic boundaries.
Based on actual consumer behavior.
• Age• Gender• Nationality• Income• Occupation• Family Status• Education• …
• Personality traits• Values• Attitudes• Interests• Lifestyles• Beliefs• …
• Region• Country• Climate• Population• …
• Loyalty• Benefits• Usage• Occasion• Readiness to buy• …
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Market Segmentation – B2B
Firmographics Needs Geographic Behavioral
Based on attributes of target business.
Based on motivations of the consumer.
Based on definedgeographic boundaries.
Based on actual consumer behavior.
• Revenue• Size in Employees• Industry (SIC)• …
• Business Challenge• Application• Requirements• …
• Region• Country• …
• Loyalty• Benefits• Usage• Readiness to buy• …
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BUILDING PERSONAS AND BUYERS JOURNEYS
Di scov e r i ng L e a r ni ng Choosi ng Pur cha si ng I m pl e m e nti ng
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Process Overview
Use a Framework
Initial Hypothesis
Internal Interviews
Customer Interviews
Aggregate and
Synthesis
Personas and
Journey Maps
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Persona Framework
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Demographics
Goals & Initiatives
Solution Fit & Criteria
Buying Process
Interaction & Content Preferences
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Journey Maps Framework: Stages
Stage Stage Type Description
Discovering MarketingThe buyer has reached a tipping point, realizing they have a pain point they need to learn more about. The buyer conducts educational research to better understand the pain point they’re experiencing.
Learning Marketing The buyer researches possible solutions to solving their defined problem and begin to identify specific providers.
Choosing Sales The buyer needs to prove to internal stakeholders that a solution is worth employing to address their problem.
Purchasing Sales The buyer is actually procuring the solution and preparing for owning, maintaining, and deploying the solution.
Implementing Product The buyer is deploying the solution, setting up users, receiving training, etc.
Proving Product The buyer is now using the solution and evaluating its qualities, benefits, and ROI or soon to be ROI.
Owning Product The buyer is using the solution, maintaining it, receiving updates on new capabilities, realizing its ROI, and expanding their usage of the solution.
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Journey Maps Framework: Dimensions
Dimension Description
Participation Levels How each persona participates in a stage of the journey
Needs What the buyer requires in order to go through their buying process at each stage. This includes informational, process requirements, internal milestones, political alignment, etc.
Activities What the buyer is actually doing at this stage to fulfill their needs. These may be group or individual activities, and both internal and external actions.
Preferences How the buyer prefers to engaged with and communicated too through content and other interactions.
Barriers A concern, an obstacle, a perception, or a requirement that must be sufficiently addressed in order to move onto the next stage.
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Journey Maps Framework: Levels of Participation
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Buying Roles and Participation Levels both capture aspects of the team dynamics of the Buying committee
Buying RolesDeciderInfluencerAdvisorUserProcurerSpecifier
Process Participation Level# Driver! Participant% Gate Keeper○ Not Involved
D iscov er in g L ear n in g
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Journey Maps Framework
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Together the Journey Stages, Journey Dimensions, Participation Levels and Personas provide a detailed framework to understand how buyers buy.
Barriers PreferencesActivities
Buyer Needs
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RESEARCH BEST PRACTICES
QUANTITATIVE AND QUALITATIVE(NOT MAGICAL, DIVINED OR INTUITED)
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Leverage your Sales and Marketing Data
» Analysis of data is an important first step in understanding the buying audience
» Key Sources:» CRM Platform
» Marketing Automation Platforms
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Conducting Surveys and Interviews
Who to Survey
• Internal stakeholders• People with direct, daily contact with audience
Who to Interview
• Recently acquired customers
• 5-‐7 interviews per Persona
What to ask
• Professionally relevant attributes and goals
• Purchase process • Participants involved• Sources and types of information
• Concerns at each stage• Barriers to overcome
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Typical Interview Questions
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What are your current business challenges?
What's the primary need you want solutions like ours to help you address?
What concerns or major questions do you have about these types of solutions?
What's the last online resource you remember sharing? Whom did you share it with?
What was your role in the buying process (decider, influencer, etc.)?
Can you walk me through what your buying process from beginning to end?
Which colleagues did you collaborate with along the way?
Which colleagues did you need approval or buy-‐in from for our solution? How did they evaluate our solution?
Persona Interview Journey Map Interview
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Interviewing Customers
Demographics
Roles and Responsibilities
Goals and Initiatives
Buying Criteria
Buying Activities
Content Preferences
Internal Barriers&
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Tips
1. Interview Recent Customers Who Align Well to Your Current Buyer Personas
2. Call Potential Customer Interviewees and Follow-‐Up with an Email
3. Provide Your Questions to Customers Beforehand
4. Practice the Interview Beforehand
5. Have Just 1 or 2 People from the Marketing Team Join the Call
6. Ask the Customer If You May Record the Call
7. Thank the Customer for Taking Time to Speak with You
8. Avoid a Narrow View
9. Don’t be Afraid to Ad Lib
10. Let the Customer Talk
11. Clarify Questions with Sample Responses
12. Record Direct Quotes
13. Introduce Your Next Round of Questions
14. Overlap is Fine
15. Repeat Lists
16. Provide a Thank You Gift
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Synthesizing the Interview Data
» You learn things from the very first interview
» After 2-‐3 interviews you start to hear some of the same things
» After 5-‐6 interviews you can identify what are the true commonalities vs. “the noise”
»With more that 7-‐8 interviews, you will just be hearing more of the same…best to wait
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Amount of Work to Build a Persona
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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10Time (hours)Framework/Process
Internal Surveys/Int.
Initial SME Session
Customer Interviews
Synthesis Workshop
50%
100%
Internal Persona
ConceptPersona
Complete Persona
TacticalWork
Strategic Work
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More Tips and Resources
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www.akoonu.com/toolkit
Download our practical toolkit:
Examples of in-‐depth personas and journey maps
Frameworks and detailed guides for building personas and journey maps
Best practice processes and tips for organizational collaboration on buyer insights
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Decision Maker Gate Keeper
End User Influencer
Advocate Approver
Influencer Supporter