How to Conduct B2B Buyer Persona Research

In the complex landscape of B2B sales and marketing, understanding your ideal customer is key. It’s not enough to know the company you’re selling to; you need to understand the individuals within that company who make purchasing decisions.

This is where B2B buyer persona research becomes an indispensable tool,  and allows you to transform assumptions into actionable insights.

What Does B2B Buyer Persona Research Look Like?

B2B buyer persona research is the process of creating semi-fictional representations of your ideal customers, based on real data and educated speculation about customer demographics, behavior patterns, motivations, and goals. Unlike a simple demographic profile, a buyer persona goes deeper, sketching out the “who,” “what,” “why,” and “how” of your key decision-makers.

A well-crafted B2B buyer persona isn’t just a name and job title. It includes:

• Demographics: Age range, education level, or role in the company.
• Company Information: Industry, company size, revenue, and key challenges faced by their organization.
• Job Responsibilities: What their day-to-day looks like, and what they are responsible for.
• Goals & Motivations: What drives them professionally, or what success looks like in their role.
• Pain Points & Challenges: The obstacles they face and the problems they are trying to solve.
• Information Sources: Where do they get their professional information (e.g., industry publications, webinars, LinkedIn, colleagues)?
• Decision-Making Process: How do they research solutions? Who else is involved in the decision? What influences their choices?
• Objections: What potential reservations might they have about your product or service?

Essentially, B2B buyer persona research paints a vivid picture of the individual buyers within your target accounts, allowing you to tailor your marketing, sales, and product development efforts more effectively.

How B2B Buyer Persona Differs From B2C

While both B2B and B2C buyer personas aim to understand the customer, their focus and complexity differ. Unlike individual, often emotional B2C purchases, B2B decisions are typically rational, involve multiple stakeholders, and have longer sales cycles with higher stakes for the organization. B2B buyers are driven by business goals like efficiency and ROI, not personal desires.

They rely on formal information sources such as industry reports and white papers, leading to long-term relationships rather than one-off transactions. This means B2B buyer persona research requires a much deeper dive into organizational structures and complex corporate decision-making processes.

Why Buyer Personas Help B2B Brands

Investing time and resources into B2B buyer persona research yields many benefits for companies such as:

• Hyper-Targeted Marketing: Develop content, campaigns, and messaging that directly addresses the specific pain points, goals, and preferred information channels of each persona.
• More Effective Sales Strategies: Equip your sales team with an in depth understanding of who they’re selling to, allowing them to tailor their pitches, anticipate objections, and speak to the buyer’s unique business challenges.
• Improved Product Development: Build products and features that truly solve your customers’ problems and align with their organizational needs, leading to higher adoption and satisfaction.
• Enhanced Customer Experience: Understand the entire buyer journey from the perspective of different personas, enabling you to optimize touchpoints and provide a seamless experience.
• Better ROI on Marketing & Sales Spend: By focusing resources on what truly resonates with your ideal customers, you reduce wasted efforts and improve the return on your investments.

What To Include on Your Buyer Persona

When constructing your B2B buyer persona, ensure it’s a comprehensive document that goes beyond basic demographics.

Here’s a checklist of what to typically include:

• Persona Name: Give your persona a memorable, descriptive name (e.g., “Operations Olivia,” or “CFO Christine”).
• Job Role & Responsibilities: Title, department, reporting structure, daily tasks, and what they are accountable for.
• Company Context: Industry and company size.
• Goals & Objectives: What success looks like in their role, their professional aspirations, and their company’s strategic goals.
• Pain Points & Challenges: Specific problems they encounter in their role, obstacles to achieving their goals, frustrations with current solutions.
• Information Sources: Professional websites, blogs, publications, conferences, thought leaders, social media groups, and networking events.
• Buying Process & Influencers: Their role in the decision-making process, who they consult, and key criteria for evaluating solutions.
• “A Day in the Life”: A brief narrative describing a typical day, highlighting moments where your solution could be relevant.

B2B Buyer Persona Example

Here’s an example of a B2B buyer persona to illustrate how research brings your ideal customer to life. Meet Hugo Klein—a marketing decision-maker with specific goals, challenges, and preferences that directly influence how he evaluates products and services. This profile helps teams align messaging, outreach, and solutions to resonate more effectively.

• Name: Hugo Klein, 36, San Francisco, CA
• Position: Chief Marketing Officer, medium-sized e-commerce company
• Background: 2 MBAs, 7 years in marketing roles, married with 2 children
• Goals: Seeks digital solutions to enhance marketing & sales
• Pain Points: Limited time to research/test numerous solutions, company lags in tech
• Expectations: Wants efficient, valuable platforms with minimal adoption effort
• Communication: Prefers concise presentations, email follow-ups, free trial offers

How to Do B2B Buyer Persona Research

Effective B2B buyer persona research is a blend of art and science, combining qualitative and quantitative data.

Set Goals For Your Research

Before you start gathering data, our B2B market research company recommends clearly defining what you want to achieve with your buyer personas. Are you trying to:

• Launch a new product?
• Refine your content strategy?
• Increase sales conversion rates?
• Enter a new market?

Having specific objectives will guide your data collection and ensure your personas are actionable.

Choose Data Points To Pull From

Leverage a variety of data sources for a holistic view:

• Web Analytics: Understand how different segments of visitors interact with your website. Which pages do they visit? What content do they download?
• Marketing Automation Data: Track email opens, click-through rates, and content consumption.
• Sales Call Recordings/Notes: Listen to conversations with prospects and customers to identify common questions, objections, and priorities.
• Customer Support Interactions: Discover recurring issues or questions that highlight customer pain points.
• Industry Reports & Market Research: Gain insights into industry trends, challenges, and competitive landscapes.
• LinkedIn & Other Professional Networks: Research job titles, company profiles, and discussion topics relevant to your target audience.

Use Existing and Potential Customers

This is arguably the most critical step. Directly interviewing individuals who fit (or could fit) your ideal customer profile provides invaluable qualitative data.

• Interview Existing Customers: They can provide insights into why they chose your solution, what problems it solves for them, and how they use it. Ask about their role, goals, challenges, and buying process.
• Interview Lost Leads/Churned Customers: Understand why they didn’t choose you or why they left. This can reveal critical gaps or unmet needs.
• Interview Prospects: Gain insights into their current challenges, decision-making processes, and initial perceptions of solutions.

Get Primary Data

While secondary data and internal interviews are great starting points, don’t shy away from conducting dedicated primary research if you have specific gaps in your understanding. This could include:

• Surveys: Distribute targeted surveys to a broader audience (e.g., via LinkedIn, email lists, or professional panels) to validate assumptions or gather quantitative data on specific preferences.
• Focus Groups: Facilitate discussions with small groups of target buyers to delve deeper into motivations, perceptions, and attitudes.
• One-on-One Interviews: Conduct structured interviews (in-person or virtual) with key decision-makers to uncover nuanced insights into their roles, challenges, and buying behaviors. These are often the most valuable source of information for persona development.

Remember, B2B market research is an ongoing process. Markets evolve, and so do your customers. Regularly revisit and refine your personas to ensure they remain accurate and effective in guiding your business strategies.

Contact Our B2B Market Research Company

Looking to better understand your business buyers? Our B2B market research company specializes in developing data-driven buyer personas that fuel smarter marketing, sales, and product decisions. Contact us today to start building a deeper connection with your target audience.