Buyer communities – what and how

Buyer programmes, or communities as Konnected calls them, are very different to sales campaigns and events. Yes, sometimes their revenue benefits will be immediate, but they are ultimately designed to develop long term, mutually beneficial, profitable relationships, and to build a company’s reputation with certain segment(s) of their market. Ideal for professional services audiences and companies looking at sustaining their growth trajectory.

It is important to define ‘buyer’. This is a generic term for those who make and influence the buying decision. So, if you have a CFO as the main buyer, who directly needs the service you are selling, they will be influenced by the Board, the wider team and the market (other CFOs, media, market influencers etc.). Of course, you cannot reach everyone at once, but you do need to consider the wider sphere while creating your programme to meet your community’s needs i.e. using market influencers as speakers or co-hosts.

Understanding the needs of your target community is where Konnected’s mantra of Business to Human (B2H) really comes to the fore:

Business to Human (B2H)

Use all the tools (personas, client journey, engagement, buying behaviour etc.) at your disposal to build a human representation of current and potential clients. This representation must remain client centric, and needs based, remembering those needs will change over time.  Marketing as the internal voice of the client and focusing on their segmented needs, rather than siloed service line thinking and using sales terminology, is key.

Maslow's hierarchyu of needs

I would imagine you are familiar with Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. If not, a quick google will sort that out. Often people talk about the seven segments of needs these days (including what Maslow later described as, aesthetic needs, cognitive needs, and self-transcendence), but let’s think about what these needs look like in a work scenario.

What do your potential buyers need met in order for you to differentiate and have a USP against the many programmes they will be invited to:

• Make me feel special (think segments, personalisation and access to opportunity – venue, speakers, networking, information, etc.)

  
  

• Solve my problems

  
  

• Help me do better, tomorrow and in the future

  
  

• Help me impress the Board/ my peers / my team

  
  

• Give me time savings

  
  

• Give me cost savings

  
  

• Give me confidence where no one knows I don’t have it

  
  

• Give me connection

  
  

• Make it easy. Use the channels I use

  
  

• Etc.

High level buyer community model

Create communities (not just events and thought leadership) that balance growing relationships based on client / target needs and selling. Remember it is buyers (holding the purse strings) and buyer influencers (influencing the purse strings).

Segmented engagement is key. You must differentiate your buyer community offering. You cannot offer the same to your key clients and targets as you do to the wider market. You can segment around the same marketing assets. So, when producing thought leadership ‘A’, on a simple example level:

• Use your top targets, clients and market influencers as opinion pieces in or on the thought leadership

  
  

• Have a pre-launch dinner with key ‘A’ experts and top clients and targets

  
  

• Official omni-channel launch approach for ‘A’ (Paper, salient points per role/sector interest, infographic, film, microsite, linked content, etc.)

  
  

• Personalised communications to clients and targets

  
  

• Whole community webinar etc.

  
  

Use feedback and ROI data. Feed it into your CRM to continue to build a picture of interests and needs.

Examples of organisations that have successfully developed Buyer Programmes includes:

The CFO Agenda: https://www.ey.com/en_gl/cfo-agenda

The Redgate 100: https://www.red-gate.com/hub/redgate-100/

To talk to us about your Buyer Communities, or how you can identify them - contact the Konnected team.