Harvard Business School marketing professor Theodore Levitt said, “People don’t want to buy a quarter-inch drill. They want a quarter-inch hole!”
Over the last five years, I’ve worked with edtech, IoT, interior design, and IT services companies to interview their customers and build marketing personas for them.
And here’s my current approach to building a modern marketing persona for a business with high-consideration buying.
Jobs To Be Done Theory centers around the idea that products exist to get a job done in a customer’s life.
A traditional marketing persona uses demographics and psychographics to create a buyer’s identity. It relies on surveys, market data, and focus groups.
A modern marketing persona revolves around the idea of speaking to a few customers directly, particularly in B2B environments, and understanding the buying process better.
There are six elements of a JTBD Persona that you need to find insights on:
The hole and the drill
What is it that the customer is struggling with? How are they currently solving that problem – what is their temporary fix? What is the ideal solution they are looking for as described in their words?
The valley of doubt
What perceptions do they have about a brand, a category, or the product/service itself? Are there hurdles they need to cross that stop them from taking action? What are their fears? What is their status in comparison to the company?
Apathy to awareness
Where do they site on the Eugene Schwartz Awareness Level scale – not aware, problem aware, solution aware, product aware, and most aware?
Zero to hero
What are the personal and professional factors that motivate them to take action? What does success look like personally and professionally?
Sources of influence
What is the kind of work a customer is doing behind the scenes to source information, evaluate options and shortlist their possibilities. Whom are they speaking to and what are they reading, and where?
The difference-maker
Which specific features and attributes of a product/service category do they evaluate to make their final decision? When all things (price, quality) are equal, how do they decide on the final choice?
