Do Demographics Matter in B2B Buyer Personas?
We are in the process of updating our B2B buyer personas for our Atlanta-based agency, and it really got me thinking: Do demographics really matter (specifically, age and gender) when creating your B2B buyer personas?
They Don’t…
On the one hand, if we think about the purpose of a buyer persona, it’s really just a way to understand those who buy our products or services. What do they value? What do they avoid? When one is situated within a certain industry and/or profession, often times the aforementioned are generalizable despite demographic. For example, the owner of a business is going to be highly concerned with ROI, and at the end of the day it shouldn’t matter if that owner is a man versus a woman (or 25 years old versus 55 years old) – as long as we speak to that ROI in our marketing outreach.
Or Do They?
On the other hand, the way that men and women communicate is quite different; and the way that Millennials and Baby Boomers communicate is quite different. Not only that, but they often seek out their information in different places, and their actual mode of communication can be different as well.
They Do!
So though some may say that demographics don’t matter as long as you speak to the issues that your customers and prospects value, I argue that demographics do matter. Research shows that there are psychological and social reasons for why gender and age affect one’s communication – and even evolutionary reasons for why genders may act differently. So taking the unique factors of these various social groups into account may make you even more effective at motivating their buyer behavior.
