It’s really easy for us to say we’re going to “put ourselves” into our potential buyers shoes. We form opinions about how they’ll buy our products, about why they’re buying and then we make plans on how to market to them. We think “Well if I were our buyer I’d want to know about feature X, Y & Z because they are the coolest ones”.
The problem is thinking that you are your buyer. You’re not. Your buyer has a specific set of problems that require a specific set of solutions. By ignoring these problems and interjecting your own opinions you’re doing yourself & your buyer a disservice.
Understanding your buyer(s) is probably the most not-done activity in a marketing department, but it’s one of, if not the most important thing you can nail. Deep-diving into their problems gives you a very clear direction of how to address their needs with your product or service. Take a look at the questionnaire below.
What this questionnaire does is give you a better picture of who your buyer is when they’re at work and purchasing software or services. It also clues you in on other personas that could be involved in the buying process. These could include a boss who signs the check, an IT person who would have to implement the solution or a general user who would need to give their buy-in. For each of these personas a short write up is ideal. This way you can address their problems and your solutions with the right collateral.
For example, buyer A is a general user and has problems with the current CRM’s user interface and thinks that is a big reason for productivity losses. Your piece of collateral connects buyer A’s problem with the beautiful UI and thoughtful UX your designers have built…problem solved. However, buyer B, the IT guy, could care less about the UI or UX, they’re major problem is lack of integration between the systems he manages. You counter this problem with a spec sheet about your current integration partners and the API that lets your solution ‘talk’ with other systems…different buyer but problem solved.
Remember, getting to know your buyer is an important part of the planning process. Understanding what your typical buyer(s) do, feel are problems, how they’re measured and how they think they could be better help you form a clear picture of how your solution fits with their work life.