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How to successfully launch a new product

Case Study: How to Successfully Launch a New Product With Buyer Persona Research

September 14, 2023/in B2B Buyer Persona Research, B2B Market Research Blog, Case Study, Videos /by Raeann Bilow
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Imagine you’re the head of sales or marketing for a leading cybersecurity company, and you have an upcoming product launch that is targeting small businesses. Since the bulk of your sales will be online, you want that online sales process to be smooth and frictionless.

In this short video, we’ll show you how one of our clients used buyer persona research to reveal the marketing and sales approaches that aligned well with an online sales approach.
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how to use b2b buyer personas to persuade decision makers

Case Study: How to use B2B Buyer Personas to Persuade Decision Makers

September 7, 2023/in B2B Buyer Persona Research, B2B Market Research Blog, Case Study, Videos /by Raeann Bilow
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What would you do if your API wasn’t being adopted at the rate you wanted, but the problem wasn’t developer engagement and uptake? Instead, your issue was with gaining approval from the other members of the B2B buying committee – including C-Levels and VPs.

In this short video, we’ll show you how one of our clients tackles this challenge with buyer persona research. Research that helped our client understand key pain points, jobs-to-be-done, and more for all members of the buying committee, and use that information to make real changes to their marketing and sales efforts.
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B2B Market Research Types

Video: Top 5 Types of B2B Market Research

June 28, 2023/in B2B Buyer Persona Research, B2B Competitive Landscape Analysis, B2B Market Research Blog, Brand Research, Key Buying Criteria, Message Testing Research, Videos /by Raeann Bilow
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We often get the question: what are some examples of the kinds of B2B market research projects? Well, we find that many of the projects we get commissioned for will often fall into one of these five main categories. And with these types of research in hand, organizations are better equipped to make more effective business decisions. Here’s how.
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Video: B2B vs. B2C Market Research – Key Project Differences

February 13, 2023/in B2B Buyer Persona Research, B2B Market Research Blog, Videos /by Alexis Ford
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The components of a B2B vs. B2C market research project are very different. From the sales cycle, to the buyer’s journey, to the customer base, to pricing models, to the product complexity and more, almost every aspect of a B2B product is different from B2C. Here’s how those differences result in different strategies and approaches when conducting B2B market research.
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4 market Research Studies Every BioTech Startup Needs

4 Market Research Studies Every Biotech Startup Needs

December 7, 2022/in B2B Buyer Persona Research, B2B Market Opportunity Research, B2B Market Research Blog, Blog Posts, Message Testing Research /by Alexis Ford
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In 2020, the biotech industry experienced a boom in venture capitalist (VC) funding. Of course, that increase was spurred by the race to develop a COVID-19 vaccine. But even after vaccine rollouts, funding continued to climb in all areas of biotech until 2022. This year, funding dropped nearly 40 percent.

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4 Ways B2B Buyer Persona Research Supports the Sales Process

October 31, 2022/in B2B Buyer Persona Research, B2B Market Research Blog, B2B Marketing Blog, Blog Posts /by Tricia Lindsey
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What was the last movie you watched? Maybe it was Top Gun: Maverick or Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Now, imagine that you’re a cast member on the set of one of these movies. If you have the movie script, you’re going to understand each character’s role in the movie, what their lines are, and what motivates them. In fact, if you understand the story well enough, you might just improvise an iconic scene. However, if you show up to set without a script, you won’t know what the story is, what your lines are, or how you should even respond to the characters around you.

The same idea applies to B2B sales. Fundamentally, you need to understand how the buyers and stakeholders in your target accounts talk to each other and how they embark on and conclude a buying journey. Buyer personas give you a sense of how these conversations start, end, and what type of “dialogue” each character uses. Most importantly, buyer personas give you a broader view of the decision making process.

Don’t Fast Forward Through Your Buyer Personas

One of the most common mistakes salespeople make is the failure to recognize that there are several decision makers involved in the buying process. In fact, Gartner reported that an average of six to 10 people are involved in most buying decisions. Our experience shows that many sales teams struggle to even identify five roles involved in the decision making process.

Moreover, Buying Facilitation author Sharon Drew Morgen calls out a key point about sales when she states, “a seller is in a unique position to serve a buyer by helping them discover the how, what, when, where, and why needed to solve a problem within the parameters of their culture.” She follows a bit later in her book with this key point as well, “[a single] buyer cannot know all of the answers to your questions because the odds are huge that they have a decision team working with them.” 

So, how does a seller go from not knowing an organization to understanding their culture? How does a seller go from knowing one member of a buying team to understanding the needs of the entire buying team? 

First, sales teams need to slow down and ensure they are meeting the needs of each stakeholder. The best way to do this is to establish some baselines as to what a typical stakeholder for your product or service might want from a vendor.

Secondly, sales teams need to be certain that the messages they are sending align with the needs of the buyers. Similarly, marketing teams need to ensure that any account based marketing (ABM) content or broader based content addresses these needs as well. 

Third, marketing and sales teams need to understand how a stakeholder makes decisions over time. In nearly all cases, some members of the buying committee have a role to play at the start of the journey, middle, end, and a limited number will be involved in the project from start to finish.

For example, when a movie starts, we might have some sense of the climactic battle, but we don’t know the role that every actor might play. Is the character we meet in the opening scene going to be with us throughout the entire movie? Or will they “be brief and be gone”? Is the character we meet towards the end the true person our hero has to defeat in the end? Or is there someone lurking in the shadows who is even more powerful?

We see this idea play out in the Hobbit movie trilogy. It might be obvious as the first movie begins that Frodo is going to be with us through the end of the story. But Sam is the real surprise, as without his help, it wouldn’t be possible for Frodo to defeat Sauron.

The key takeaway: If you fast forward through the entire movie, would you really understand the plot (sales process)? You might understand how the battle (or sale) was won or lost, but you wouldn’t really understand how it happened. You wouldn’t understand which actor (or persona) was critical to the story, and you wouldn’t understand who was rooting for the hero (the seller) or against them. 

Supporting Actors Need to Understand Everyone’s Role

We once worked with a client who had successfully built relationships with leadership at several universities. This client wanted to develop buyer personas for university c-suite roles to inform their marketing strategy and related materials. The goal was to take a role-based approach rather than leading with a product-first strategy.

To make this pivot successful however, the sales and marketing teams in our client would require a deeper understanding of the needs of key buyer personas. In particular, our client was focused on the needs of a VP of Research and a Chief Academic Officer in a university setting. 

In a typical university, a VP of Research and a Chief Academic Officer have different responsibilities. A VP of Research is responsible for directing the university’s mission, focusing on policy issues, and establishing community relations. A Chief Academic Officer ensures academic quality in all departments, programs, and services within the organization.

Our client learned that each persona would need to hear a different message if they were to develop an interest in our client’s solution. The sales team would best be able to develop rapport with the Chief Academic Officer by discussing fundraising in academia. Similarly, the VP of Research might be interested in communicating to the student body about research grants or new partnerships. 

The key takeaway: Buyer personas give you an essential look into the motivations and needs of each buyer you’ll meet on the journey to a successful sale. 

Buyer Personas Tell You When It’s Time to Say Your Lines

We recently conducted a buyer persona project for a client who sold a SaaS solution of interest to law firms. They learned that law firms rarely make any recommendations to clients about what software to use because they don’t want to be liable for anything. 

However, Chief Legal Officers or General Counsels who work for companies about to go public might be interested in the software. 

As a salesperson, this discovery shows that you can’t always rely on referrals from every market segment you might touch. Without this information, a sales team’s outreach efforts would be fruitless. This knowledge allowed our client to utilize B2B buyer persona research to create extremely targeted outreach — maximizing the use of their sales and marketing team’s time. 

The key takeaway: You can’t always rely on existing clients to evangelize for you. Sometimes, you run into people who aren’t interested in your services whatsoever. But with buyer persona research, you’ll be able to maximize the value of your efforts and minimize wasted opportunities.

Buyer Personas Align Sales and Marketing Teams

Famous movie duos aren’t always in agreement throughout a movie. Take Maverick and Rooster, for example. Throughout the better part of the movie, Rooster resents Maverick after learning that Maverick pulled Rooster’s application to flight school, setting him back from his peers.

However, after Maverick gets shot down in an effort to distract the enemy jets, it’s none other than Rooster who risks his own life to save Maverick. The dynamic duo then steals an old enemy F-14 aircraft and barely makes it back to the base alive.

The beef between Maverick and Rooster created a riff across the entire team. This tension almost cost the entire flight crew their lives as they trained for the dangerous mission.

The same idea holds true for sales and marketing teams. When everyone is clear on what personas you’re going after you can provide unified sales and marketing content without confusion.

The key takeaway:  It’s frustrating for a buyer to get different messaging from sales and marketing teams. Being in alignment internally creates a better outcome for your buyers which is the ultimate goal. Aim for cohesion, not confusion.

Be the Hero Your Buyers Deserve

In Top Gun: Maverick, Hangman only gets 35 minutes of screen time. (In contrast, Maverick gets 113 minutes, and Rooster, 66 minutes.) Although Hangman is an integral part of the jet fighter squad at the beginning, he isn’t selected for the death-defying mission. However, just as Maverick and Rooster are about to be shot down, Hangman comes in and saves them in the most heroic way possible.

The moral here for B2B sales teams is clear. Even the characters with the least amount of screen time can make a big impact. It’s easy to focus on the stars and forget that other actors can help you achieve your goals. Like Frodo and Sam, or Maverick and Hangman, you need to understand all the key personas, not just the ones with the biggest titles or the most screen-time if you want to win the deal.

Finally, don’t ask your sales team to win a deal without giving them the knowledge of all the players that matter, especially those folks who seem to be merely a supporting actor at first glance. We can help you get that early first look at the script of the buyer’s journey so you’ll know before anyone else how the story turns out in the end.

 


With 15 years of experience in B2B tech market research, Cascade Insights understands the value in knowing your buyer personas. Learn more about our sales services here.


Special thanks to Sean Campbell, CEO, for advising on this piece.

Buyer Personas

Video: Why B2B Organizations Need Buyer Personas

October 5, 2022/in B2B Buyer Persona Research, B2B Market Research Blog, Videos /by Raeann Bilow
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Buyer personas are table takes for any B2B organization. These are the times when it is particularly crucial for an organization to procure buyer persona research.
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market research healthcare cybersecurity

3 Types of Market Research to Benefit Healthcare Cybersecurity Startups

September 16, 2022/in B2B Buyer Persona Research, B2B Competitive Landscape Analysis, B2B Market Research Blog, B2B Marketing Blog, Blog Posts, Brand Research, Sales Enablement Marketing /by Raeann Bilow
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It’s no secret that the tech industry has been experiencing some unsettling circumstances recently. Nearly every week, another major tech company announces more hiring freezes or layoffs.

While much of the tech space is entrenched in uncertainty, there are certain segments within it that remain resilient. One such area is healthcare cybersecurity – one of the fastest growing among venture capitalists right now. In fact, the healthcare cybersecurity market is expected to reach $35B+ by 2027, more than triple its size in 2020.

During such a rapid growth period, companies run the risk of making the wrong decisions and quickly squandering any potential success. Conversely, making the right business decisions during this time can help a company to expand and scale sustainably.

B2B market research is a key component to helping a rapidly-expanding healthcare cybersecurity startup grow in the right direction. Here’s how market research – particularly buyer personas, brand research, and competitive landscape analyses – can all be instrumental in setting a new company up for success.
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B2B Buyer Persona Research: Truth Over Templates

B2B Buyer Persona Research: Truth Over Templates

April 29, 2022/in B2B Buyer Persona Research, B2B Market Research Blog, Blog Posts /by Ashley Wilson
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The power of a strong B2B buyer persona is undeniable. In the past, creating them brought a competitive advantage for companies that used them. Today, it’s more than just a benefit; it’s a necessity. However, if your personas are so generic that you can’t effectively reach your target audiences, you might want to think about basing those personas on a firmer foundation of truth.

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B2B Buyer Personas: 6 Key Insights to Build Effective Marketing Strategy

B2B Buyer Personas: 6 Key Insights to Build an Effective Marketing Strategy

October 12, 2021/in B2B Buyer Persona Research, B2B Market Research Blog /by Alexis Ford
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As a B2B marketer, it’s crucial you know your intended buyers. You must know what kind of content to create to attract them to your business, move them through the funnel, and bring them into contact with your sales team. Read more

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Alexis Ford
Alexis Ford
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Philippe Boutros
Sean Campbell
Sean Campbell

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