Imagine this ...

You’re on the marketing team of a food box delivery company. You’ve been tasked with creating a new marketing campaign for Back-To-School this fall. 

Your mind starts to race with all the cool ideas for social media videos and TV spots. 

But then your teammate asks the question: “Who specifically are we targeting with this campaign? Parents? Kids? Teachers?”

In today's edition of Why We Buy, we're taking a look at Buyer Roles — a helpful thought framework for understanding who your real buyer is.

Let's get into it.

🧠 The Psychology of Buyer Roles

Depending on the type of product you’re selling, the number of people you’ll need to convince could be vastly different.

Selling a loaf of bread might only need one person’s approval, whereas selling high-end services to a large corporation will require a number of decision-makers to agree.

To simplify this abstract idea, specific buying roles have been characterized. These roles will be present in most buying situations. 

Remember, an individual can occupy more than one role:

• The Initiator: the person who proposes a brand (or product) for consideration (something in return)
• The Influencer: someone who recommends a given brand
• The Decider: the person who makes the ultimate purchase decision
• The Purchaser: the one who orders or physically buys it
• The User: the person who uses or consumes the product

🧐 Inside Your Buyer's Mind

It’s your job as a marketer to understand what pain point matters to each buying role.

Let’s use the example of a direct-to-consumer service that delivers a meal kit to your door every week. 

The Initiator: Likely the person who does the majority of the cooking around the house. Maybe they're tired of looking for recipes, don’t have the time to go to the grocery store, or aren’t a very good cook. 

The Influencer: The person who has heard of a food box brand either through advertisements or organic channels. Likely the person who spends the most time online researching or is the most socially connected to hear about a brand through friends. 

The Decider: This person would likely be in charge of the grocery shopping. They’re going to give the thumbs up whether to try the new delivery service or keep following the status quo. 

The Purchaser: This would be whoever has a credit card or received a promotional offer from the seller. 

The User: The entire household would be the user in this case (assuming everyone eats the meals that were provided in the box).

🤑 How To Apply This

Alright, so how can we apply this right now to sell more?

Understand which roles exist: Work with your sales team to map out which buyer roles exist and who the individuals are at each role. Interview past customers to learn more about what benefits and features matter to them specifically. 

Create content that’s specific: Each buyer role is going to need to see different messages at different times to be convinced to purchase from you. By mapping your customer buying journey, you can begin to understand what content will help them at each stage of their decision-making process. 

Identify your weaknesses & barriers: Once you’ve got a grasp on the buyer roles, reflect to see which role is giving you the hardest time. Test new types of content, sales outreach, and ad creative based on the customer interviews you’ve done until you find the right mix. Update as necessary.

💥 The Short of It

There are often multiple people included in the decision process. If you're not taking each stakeholder into consideration and crafting the right message for them, the sales process will be slower. 

Map out the buying journey of your customer to understand who all is involved. Identify who fulfills each role. Assign only the most relevant pain points as marketing messaging for each role. Test and re-iterate based on what you learn from customer interviews. (Want help with interviews? See below 👇)

Until next time, happy selling!

Yours truly, 

Katelyn

Katelyn Bourgoin CEO & Lead Trainer Customer Camp CustomerCamp.co

P.S. Speaking of Buyer Roles... do you know who influences your customer's decisions to buy?

I'm not talking about Instagrammers and celebrities. I'm talking about the real people in their lives who they trust implicitly and whose endorsement will push them to buy faster than anything YOU could say in your marketing. 

Last week I co-hosted a nail-bitingly exciting webinar with Kristen LaFrance, host of Shopify's Resilient Retail podcast and Rory Sutherland, Vice Chaiman of Ogilvy Group and author of Alchemy: The Dark Art and Curious Science of Creating Magic in Brands, Business, and Life. 

Rory and I interviewed Kristen about a recent purchase she made and dug into the unconscious triggers that motivated her to move through the buying journey and the people who influenced her buying decision.

Kristen is an experienced marketer, but even she was surprised by just how much was happening below the surface...

This webinar was pure gold! Did you tune in? 

If like Jim here you missed the live webinar, unfortunately, the replay won't be publicly available.

However... I will be adding a replay of the webinar as a special bonus to our Clarity Call Cheatsheets. 

And... surprise! 🎉🎉🎉 I'm offering a flash sale on the cheatsheets today...

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Just enter the coupon code 'GIVEMECLARITY' when you check out to take advantage of this flash sale. 

These cheatsheets are good. But don't take my word on it. Here's what Brennan had to say about them just yesterday...

Get your cheatsheets today and don't forget to use your coupon 'GIVEMECLARITY' to save $30 off the regular price. The flash sale ends at midnight.

Let me know if you have any questions.

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