I have been reading Mac McIntosh’s blog on B2B Marketing and agree with his view on Persona marketing. Some interesting nuggets on his views follow:

Persona marketing in a business-to-business environment can offer different challenges than in a business-to-consumer environment.

McIntosh offers this advice on getting started with personae in a b-to-b world:

• Convene a group of employees who interact with your customers and prospects. Bring in lunch and a white board and ask them to help you build personae for your target customers.
• Describe the target customer’s role in the company: Is he the CEO or a purchasing agent? An influencer or an end user?
• Describe the kind of company each type of customer works for. What industry is it in? How big is it? How up-to-date is it? Does it have a lot of competition?
• Give each persona a name, a title, and an age, and describe how he (or she) looks. How does he dress? What kind of car does she drive? What does he do in his free time? What kind of educational background does she have? Flesh out as many attributes as you need to give a full picture of who this person is.
• Think about each persona’s problems and goals. What does this person’s daily calendar look like? What are his most pressing concerns? What product or service attributes would be most helpful in solving this person’s problems?
• When formulating your marketing messages, think about what path this prospect or customer might pursue to solve this problem. Will he turn to white papers? Articles in trade publications? Websites? Would this persona seek input from a speaker at a networking group of their peers?
• Let the personae steer the route; you can then pave the route with information to help your prospects and customers move forward in their consideration and buying process.