Beyond Buyer Personas: Dive Into Data to Really Know Your B2B Customers

Most B2B marketers and sales pros (at least the ones who think they’re good at their jobs) would probably say they know and understand their customers very well. They may even have detailed buyer personas that outline the age, personal details, and job title of their typical buyer or decision-maker. After all, knowing your customer is crucial for delivering an exceptional customer experience (CX).

When it comes to grasping customers’ needs and preferences, the reality is that businesses are often faced with gaps. To start, many buyer personas are either built around inaccurate, outdated data or derived from a focus group or small sampling that doesn't represent the entire customer base. In addition, B2B buying in 2023 is largely done by buying groups rather than individual decision-makers, with buyer personas offering a fragmented view of the situation.

Not only does all of this impede CX efforts, but it can also impact your ability to target the right prospects and tailor messaging to understand their needs, address their pain points, and fit their preferences. A recent CMSWire article states, "If you’re going to reach new customers, you need to know your current customers inside out.” Here are a few simple strategies to use:

-  Fill in the data gaps. The data you already have from your customers is a great starting point, but you may notice incomplete or missing fields or limited firmographics. This is a common challenge with first-party data. To err is human: buyers and decision-makers don’t always update their accounts with new contact information. They may also inaccurately report the size of their company or another data field. Third-party data can be hugely beneficial in filling in those pieces to ensure you have a complete, accurate understanding of your customers.

-   Leverage the right data. Once you really know your existing customers, it’s much easier to know what to look for when targeting new ones. Identity graphs offer an effective people-based approach to building an audience based on many online and offline factors -- while maintaining privacy. An identity graph is a collection of known customer or prospect identifiers pulled together using data sourced from multiple providers. By aggregating these identifiers, the graph provides a full picture of the customers/prospects, including names, phone numbers, home addresses, personal and business email addresses, usernames, and more. From there, data is exported to a demand-side platform for fueling digital marketing.

One more thing about identity graphs: some use probabilistic data and others use deterministic data. Probabilistic graphs are based on probabilities or likelihoods rather than definitive answers. Deterministic graphs use matching algorithms to determine unique identifiers such as email addresses, customer IDs, or phone numbers and then link together all the identifiers to create a unified view of an individual or entity.

Deterministic graphs provide a more accurate way to zero in on the prospect characteristics your business is looking for. In addition, they make sure you’re not wasting time and resources on duplicate records or targeting the wrong prospect using a shared device, such as in a household. They have also been proven to reduce ad fraud caused by bot activity.

-    Know what they want.

While we’re covering this topic, I’ve got some exciting news. We’ll soon be adding a deterministic intent monitoring tool to our product line to drive greater accuracy and success for our clients’ display ad campaigns. The new tool uses matching algorithms that uncover unique identifiers all the way down to the device ID level. This allows brands to anonymously identify individual decision-makers associated with the device being used to perform a product or service search. By providing a way for marketers to serve their display ads to people who have already shown interest in buying what their brand has to offer, the tool is a game changer.

More details will be available soon. To register your interest, contact us today.

Your existing customers and prospective buyers expect a personalized experience when they’re engaging with your company. They want you to show that you really know them. Understanding both on a profound level can empower you to deliver those personalized experiences and improve customer acquisition and growth.

If you want to expand what you know about your most important target audiences – beyond buyer personas -- and grow your B2B sales pipeline, reach out to our team. OMI has expertise in planning, implementing, and managing new customer acquisition campaigns, along with intent monitoring, audience building, identity graphs, and much more.