You might think that your marketing and sales departments work together as a team (and in a perfect world, they should). But disconnects between marketing and sales teams happen. One of the biggest gaps between the two is the definition of a quality lead:
59% of marketers say they provide salespeople with very high quality leads, only 25% of salespeople agree (2017 Hubspot).
Clearly, quality marketing-sourced leads — that could convert to sales — mean different things to marketers and salespeople. To close this gap you must invest in buyer persona development. Buyer Personas are crucial if you want your inbound marketing strategy to succeed.
A buyer persona is a fictional representation of a person within a specific segment of your target market.
Here’s Why Buyer Personas Improve Inbound Marketing & Allow You to Reach More of Your Target Market
1. Buyer Personas Get Specific: It’s not enough to know who makes up your target market (you need to know more than just the tombstone information like name, age, and gender). You also have to understand what their motivations, challenges, responsibilities and goals are. Building buyer personas helps you answer these questions. You need this information so you can better understand how your buyer personas (and the real people they represent) use your website.
2. Buyer Personas Help You Understand: Once you get specific about your different personas you can better understand what your buyer persona searches for online. You’ll be able to tell how they search and why they need the product. That’s where your inbound marketing strategy steps in to draw customers to your website and convert leads to sales with effective Calls-To-Action and landing pages.
3. Buyer Personas Make You Listen: Since your buyer personas are representations of segments of your target market, they will inevitably ask the question all customers ask: What’s In It For Me, or WIIFM. When you work on answering your persona’s questions, you’ll be prepared with answers for your real customers. You’ll know you’re being asked a WIIFM question when you hear things like:
- What problems can you solve for me?
- How can your product or service improve my life?
- How can you help me reach my goals?
4. Buyer Personas Get Results: Buyer personas made websites 2 to 5 times more effective and easier to use, according to Hubspot. We all know inbound marketing gets results. But the most important thing for your inbound marketing strategy is to invest in persona development.
Use Buyer Personas To Transform Inbound Marketing For Your Sales Department
Invest in buyer persona development to make sure your marketing department isn’t a part of the 59% who think they provide high quality leads to their sales department but often don’t.
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