Developing Your Buyer Personas & Demand Generation Process: An Event Recap
November 19th, 2015
by Carrie Brown
Jay Hidalgo, President of the Barzel Group, joined us last week to present on demand generation at New Vintage Place on the West Side of Grand Rapids.
He walked us through the components marketers can use to create a demand generation program, and then showed us how to apply what we learned. Jay has provided a summary in easy-to-follow, implementable steps:
Knowing the Buyer – Defining Buyer Types or Personas
This is a biographical sketch of the target buyer(s) that provides information about their background; challenges they face, typical daily activities, motivations, and defines their buying roles.
Understanding the Buyer’s Thinking – Buying Process/Journey
Status Quo and Problem Awareness are examples of phases that the buyer goes through when deciding to make a purchase.
Content – Drafting a Blueprint/Outline
Developing the right content strategy is key. To achieve this, you can draft a Content Blueprint to align messages with each persona based on the buying process phase they were in at any given time.
Lead Qualification – Establishing a Model
The assumption that all leads should be sent to sales is a myth. It’s important to qualify leads throughout the marketing-sales cycle to determine the appropriate stage or channel. How do you achieve this? By establishing a sound qualification model that includes label definitions, criteria, and/or lead scoring.
Lead Planning – Establishing Goals
To determine the effectiveness of your demand generation program, establish goals ahead of time. Lead Planning sets targets like conversion rate, revenue, and top of funnel goals.
Lead Routing – Operational Component of Demand Generation
Once a lead has been obtained, you need to define a process that determines:
- How/where it should be routed?
- What is the system that qualifies it?
- Should it be nurtured or sent directly to sales?
- Does it need to be converted to an opportunity?
Once this process is defined, it should be configured into your marketing automation and CRM systems.
Lead Nurturing – Keeping Customers Engaged
Many people think that Lead Nurturing is like a drip campaign, but it’s more than that. Lead Nurturing is actually a planned, systematic way for keeping prospects/customers engaged in the conversation. It’s based on the persona, their stage in the buying process, and includes digital as well as personal interaction.
Metrics – Managing and Measuring
This is the final piece of an effective demand generation program. Make sure your demand generation program measures new leads created, conversion through the funnel, speed through the sales cycle, ROI, and total revenue generated.