Personas - Who Can We Help Win?

Last week we discussed segmenting your account base into ICP/Not ICP and account tiers.? That’s a phenomenal first step, but it only gets you halfway there.? Without knowing who at these companies may be our best-fit, our champions and power users, our messaging won’t resonate. We’ll be reaching out to the right companies but not getting our messaging in front of the right audience.

B2B SaaS is either a solution to a problem or a way to increase revenue when utilized correctly.? This means you either making someone's life easier, you’re making someone look good internally, or both.? When a product can do one of these things, it makes it easier to build champions who in my opinion, are the most critical part of a B2B enterprise sale.? With that in mind, I would set out to find who are our champions.? Who has championed us in the past, does our messaging still resonate with that persona, and are we marketing and going outbound to those personas within our best-fit accounts? We’ll cover the basics:

Contact Roles

Getting to GTM alignment around personas is half art, half science.? The first and easiest step if not already completed is to require contact roles and that opportunities are created directly from leads/contacts.? This provides attribution when done correctly and gets your titles for the contact that sparked the opportunity - the conversion point.? That’s not always your champion at the end of the day, but it’s a good data point.? By enforcing contact roles and requiring a champion in the organization’s opportunities, you provide yourself a critical data point.? Contact roles can also give you your economic buyer personas, your power users, etc.? Critical data points to know who’s who in the zoo and to provide a 360 degree view of your opportunity. If you have historical data here, break out your contact roles into sub-categories of seniority level and function (i.e. VP of InfoSec) and see where the sweet spot is between seniority level and function that provides the highest win rate with a large enough sample size.

Ask Sales - They’re Not Shy?

When it comes to working with sellers, you get no shortage of opinions, whether you ask for them or not.? But in the case of personas, your sellers are the first point of contact and are an invaluable resource of information if you know how to correctly harvest it.? This info isn’t just “what titles do the champions typically have”.? It’s is our messaging resonating? What are the reactions we’re seeing across different pieces of content?? To take it a step further, they’ll be an invaluable resource in terms of who’s entering the conversation and the decision-making process throughout the sales cycle.? What are their titles? What is their role in the process?? You can take this information and tailor your content and marketing efforts to align with each stage of the buyer’s journey.

Customer Success and Subject Matter Experts

No one knows more about who your biggest fans are than your CS team.? Due to the nature of the role, they’re interfacing with your champions, economic buyers, power users, and even your detractors on a regular basis.? This wealth of knowledge is critical to track and can be tracked easily in contact roles. Additionally, the anecdotal information can help add some color and context.? If you sell into a specific vertical, you likely have someone considered a subject matter expert in-house.? This voice is often critical in understanding the dynamic of that industry or vertical and providing additional color and context around personas that can help drive strategy around your top-of-funnel marketing and sales strategies. If you have this role within your organization, this person should be a huge part of your sales and marketing strategy as they’ll have perspectives that will be incredibly valuable.?

Content Strategy

Developing content that resonates with your identified ideal customer persona can be a gamechanger for your GTM engine.? Demand Gen in B2B enterprise is really really hard.? If you’re in a new category - you may be providing a solution that they didn’t know existed.? Get to know the day-to-day of your ideal personas. Understand their role as deeply as you can. What are their pain points that you can speak to? What potential levers do they have at their disposal to help the company win?? If you can speak to that through your content strategy - through case studies, white papers, and other educational materials, your demand gen will engine will start to turn on.

Sales Enablement and Sales Strategy

Now that you know who your best fit prospects are, you need to equip your sales team with the information they need to act consultatively as subject matter experts on sales calls or meetings. With this in mind, you can design your sales pitches and materials to be highly tailored to specific titles that are solving a specific problem - or that has the ability to pull a growth lever that you can unlock. It also allows you to address common objections that you’ve heard or are likely to hear from this persona.

Continued Iteration

As your company grows, your product(s) will grow and the market will change.? Regularly review and update your buyer personas as the market and your product(s) evolve.? Stay informed about industry changes, emerging trends, and evolving customer needs. If things don’t seem to be working this year like they were last year, make some changes. Nothing changes if nothing changes.??

At the end of the day, building champions by helping your prospects win internally is an exponential growth factor.? If you can find that sweet spot, you have a critical piece of your go-to-market strategy figured out.