Taking the time to develop your company’s ideal customers through buyer personas not only saves time and money but also allows you to connect with prospects on a more personal level.
In order to effectively plan out your sales and marketing strategies, it is best to know your target audience first. Many factors come into play when working to close a deal, but clearly defining your buyer personas will drive you towards success.
71% of companies that exceed revenue and lead goals have documented personas.
Boardview
The goal is to establish a genuine human-to-human connection throughout the entire sales process. This level of nurturing should show your prospects and clients that you are not just looking for a sale but instead care about who they are and what they need. By identifying your buyer personas and implementing that data throughout the sales process, you will land more deals and create lasting relationships with your clients.
“In every communication, in every conflict, we are subconsciously either reinforcing or begging for safety, belonging, mattering or a combination.”
Christine Comaford
Research and Understanding
In order to create an authentic relationship in sales, one must have a fundamental understanding of what we as humans crave: safety, belonging, and mattering.
Safety is a sense of emotional or physical security based on needs, desires, risks, and challenges one may face internally or throughout the business. It is creating an environment where one can take risks.
Belonging is a feeling one has when they’re a member or part of an association, community, group, or organization. Ex: Marketing Team, ICBA, LinkedIn Groups.
Mattering is a message that stresses the importance or significance of what you are doing, how you feel, and how others feel about you.
By implementing these three emotional aspects into your sales and marketing plan, you ensure an authentic relationship with your prospects. Dig deep into your persona research to discover how these elements affect the various titles of your target audience. At our core, we all want the emotional security of safety, belonging, and mattering, but every job title will have one that is more important than the other.
For instance, a CFO will need more nurturing in the safety category because they are focused on financing. They want to know that they are getting a result for the money they are spending, whereas a marketing director will be focused on mattering because they want to know what they are doing adds value.
Use this understanding of safety, belonging, and mattering throughout the research process of your buyer personas. The more you can uncover surrounding your prospects’ needs and desires, the better you will communicate with them. Just as in everyday life, to get someone to trust you, you must influence them emotionally. You must show your prospects you care about them and understand their needs. When you bundle these three emotions together, you are going to provide an invaluable level of trust to your prospects and clients.
Creating Personalized Content
Once you have a solid grasp of your buyer personas, you will want to start thinking of ways to incorporate these emotional elements into your campaign. By understanding your prospects at their deepest level, you will know how you should communicate with them and what messages they are most interested in hearing. Through the research you conduct, you will be able to tailor your message to address pain points and objections by focusing on the things that make them tick. Understanding your target will help determine jargon and terminology, so prospects can better relate to your message.
Buyers are 48% more likely to consider a company that personalizes their messaging to address specific business issues.
ITSMA
No one wants to be sold a generic sales pitch. Instead, customize your marketing content to fit the needs of who you are talking to, making every contact feel like they are the only person being sold to. They want to walk away knowing their relationship matters, which is not just another number in a sales book. By properly planning out your message, you will be able to connect with your prospects in a way that shows them you understand their pain points and the things they care most about.
Putting Plan to Action
When strategizing the best ways to reach out to your prospects, it is vital to remember a fundamental piece to your sales strategy: there is a human on the other end. Now, that may seem like an odd thing to point out, yet so many salespeople fail to remember it. They are so focused on setting appointments and closing deals that they forget there is a person on the other end with needs and desires. Again, prospects and clients want to feel a sense of safety, belonging, and mattering.
By knowing the ins and outs of the personas, you will not only know the proper way to speak to your prospects, but it will also help keep your conversation on track. Far too often, Sales Reps. focus on things that are not appealing to the person on the other end, simply because they failed to prepare ahead of time. Having a script or message in place will help hit prospects’ points of interest while showing them how your company can add efficiencies or help them produce better results.
Creating this human-to-human connection should come from a genuine place. Remember, our world is saturated with many options for buyers. If they do not like a product or service or the person selling it, they can simply say ‘no’ and move on to the next option. By putting in the time and effort to connect on a meaningful level, you will gain their trust and, ultimately, their sale.
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