I can’t blame marketers for avoiding the development of marketing plans, launch plans or any other version of a strategic plan. This apparently reasonable request usually requires countless hours of…
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Good Use of Personas
Really Bad News about the Real Buyer’s Journey
Across thousands of buyer interviews spanning dozens of industries, there is one aspect of almost every buyer’s journey that is pervasive and absolutely terrifying – Almost no one can recall…
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What’s Your Content Strategy Now? Ask your buyers!
This is the first of many upcoming blog posts from Steve Rankel, who joined our team last summer as COO. Steve is a 30-year veteran of marketing and sales, and…
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Get your Buyer Personas Right with 7 Rules
People often ask us how they can tell if their buyer personas are accurate and actionable. In a recent survey we heard questions such as “How do I really…
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Gartner says: Sales and marketing influences just 32% of B2B buyer’s journey
I am fascinated by a recent Gartner study about the journey of 700 enterprise buyers across the U.S., EMEA, Brazil, India and China. According to a recent interview with Hank…
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How I chose a PR firm to launch my new book
I just made an important buying decision. Since Wiley will release my first book on March 9, I wanted to hire a PR firm to do the launch right. I…
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Big News from Buyer Persona Institute
You might have noticed that I haven’t published updates on this blog and that my presence on social media has been scarce over the last few months. I wish I…
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Go Big Or Go Home: How Buyer Personas Help A Global Marketing Effort
We frequently talk about how buyer persona insights add value to sales, messaging and content, but how does that work in a company with more than a thousand marketers around…
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Got Buyer Personas? 44% say yes, but 85% aren’t using them effectively
This disturbing data was reported in a recent ITSMA study. The sample size was relatively small and limited to the services marketing sector, but I’m seeing indicators that this is…
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Make Every Word Matter (and Make Sure Your Buyer Personas Tell You How)
There’s a wonderful Mark Twain quote that goes like this “The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter—’tis the difference between the…
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