With my wedding only a month away, I’m in the thick of preparing the finishing touches to make sure everything comes together on the day.
As I’ve been finalising details with the suppliers I booked months ago, I’ve wondered how relaxed - or needy - I must be coming across compared to other soon-to-be brides.
Is everyone as blase about which canapes to serve as I am? Does everyone want to know the specific types of flowers that will be in their bouquet and the exact size of the button holes? (I’ll admit I’m definitely on the needy side here.)
It got me thinking about how as customers, we all differ when it comes to what we need and expect from providers.
As a content writer working in B2B marketing, everything I do revolves around my clients’ buyer personas. I know their day-to-day responsibilities, who they report to, their challenges and aspirations.
But can we really be so simplistic to say that every Marketing Maggie or every Procurement Pete will have the same needs and expectations throughout the buyers’ journey?
Surely the personality of the buyer in question plays a big role here?
I came across this article from HubSpot related to this topic. They explore four different types of personality and offer tips on how to sell to them. These tips can be applied to the content you create too.
The ‘Assertive’ personality
These people are goal-oriented, decisive and competitive. They are focused on facts and outcomes.
Tips: Emphasise how your product or service will solve their problems. When it comes to your case studies, they will care less about personal testimonials and more about the ROI you’ve delivered to your customers.
The ‘Amiable’ personality
Trust is important and they like to build a rapport with the people they do business with. They don’t make decisions quickly and will want more guidance.
Tips: Help them visualise the outcomes they could achieve, help them understand the decision-making process, and show them how you’ve helped similar clients tackle challenges like theirs.
The ‘Expressive’ personality
Expressives are concerned with others’ well-being and will want to know how a potential solution can help not just them, but those around them. They like to feel connected on a personal level.
Tips: Don’t focus too much on facts and figures - ultimately they want to know how their buying decision affects their business on a human level.
The ‘Analytic’ personality
These people love data, facts and figures. They will ask a lot of questions and take their time with decisions.
Tips: Make sure your content covers all questions they may have - FAQs and other evergreen content will be key. Avoid making high-level claims, or risk losing credibility.
Understanding personality types can help content marketers to think about all the different ways they can package their content to connect with a wider customer base.
Marketing to multiple personalities is possible. A video that humanises your company is likely to appeal to the Amiables and the Expressives. A results-focused infographic will capture the attention of the Assertives. And an Analytic will pore over a statistical report.
Make sure you have something in your content mix for everyone.
If you want to consistently win deals, you can’t sell how you’d like to be sold to. You have to adapt your strategy to the buyer’s personality type. Let’s dive into the four main types of personalities and what you need to know about each.
https://blog.hubspot.com/sales/how-to-sell-to-different-personality-typ
