Before we get to all the marketing talk, let’s do a quick exercise.
If you have access to your company’s CRM, or if you’ve got emails between you and your customer contacts, glance through it really quick. Pay attention to the email signatures that belong to the people you’re emailing. What types of job titles do you see?
You probably see titles like “Buyer II, Mechanical Engineer, Supplier Quality Engineer, and Supply Chain Director.” And realistically, you’re likely seeing several variations of those same titles, but you get the idea: engineering, quality, and supply chain.
At the highest level, and without conducting proper research, these are the technical buyer personas that are most often seen in a job shop’s customer base.
But why care about technical buyer personas? What do you “do” with them? We’ll get to that. Without getting too ahead of ourselves, let’s define buyer persona.
Technical buyers are different from your average buyer. In the world of B2B marketing, and within the context of the manufacturing industry, technical buyers have very specific content needs and journey to very particular channels to find the information they’re looking for.
A buyer persona is a representation of your ideal customer based on market research and real data about your existing customers.
Source: HubSpot
If you’ve done your homework, a thoroughly defined buyer persona will guide your marketing, sales, and customer service efforts. It will help you develop strategies that attract, engage, and delight your ideal customer from the time you win that first RFQ to when they become repeat business you can rely on.
In other words, a buyer persona gives you a crystal clear idea of the types of people you do business with, what their pain points are, the topics they care about, where they hang out online, and more.
Let me be clear: a buyer persona is not a representation of your ideal customer in the sense that it can be an OEM or some kind of CMO; a buyer persona is a representation of a person. They represent the people who work for your ideal customer.
Buyer personas contain important information about your customer contacts, such as age, education, interests, pain points that are specific to their job, where they go online, etc. – and this information helps you better engage them online, nurture relationships with them, and meet their needs.
For job shops, technical buyer personas comprise the “types” of customer contacts you speak with every day. Depending on your size, your ideal customer, your current customer base, and the sectors you support, you may have as few as two to three personas, or you may have five or more.
I've found that there are predominantly four technical buyer personas that job shops should research, develop, and incorporate into their larger inbound marketing strategy. They include:
* A note on the C-Suite persona: they will not, and should not, weigh into your content marketing strategy as heavily as the other personas. The content you produce is intended for people who conduct research online either to do their job better or because it’s part of their job (i.e., a buyer needs to source new suppliers for their company’s AVL). A CEO or President is not going to conduct research on a job shop’s website to do their job better; and that’s fine, they are not your focus when it comes to technical content marketing.
Now that we have a solid understanding of technical buyer personas, let’s walk through how to create your own technical buyer personas and how you can incorporate them into your marketing strategy.
Creating technical buyer personas for your company requires a combination of both market research and analyzing your current and potential customer base.
The bulk of your market research will be focused on clarifying the following information about each one of your personas:
Keep in mind: there isn't a definitive, universally agreed-upon list of buyer personas for you to choose from. It varies by industry, organization, and sector served - you get the idea.
That being said, if you're a job shop, here are some "standard" technical buyer personas to get you started. I highly recommend using these as a springboard of sorts and collaborating with all customer-facing stakeholders in your company to refine and tailor these personas to your shop's current and potential customer base.
The first opportunity to get specified into a product, assembly, or project. Their job is to develop and/or identify the proper components that will solve the end need. This means they are:
a.) Designing custom parts to be manufactured
b.) Researching specs and attributes of standardized products.
Once conceptualized and thoroughly researched, the design engineer creates the necessary drawings for custom components, sub-assemblies, and the overall assembly model in a 2D or 3D CAD system. A bill of materials (BOM) is created and submitted to the purchasing department for these drawings.
Design engineers often recommend products by OEM name and part number. This OEM may or may not be on the AVL - if the OEM is not on the AVL, the engineer must justify the request to go outside the typical supplier network.
Personality and Background
Degreed engineers or manufacturing professionals who focus on problem-solving. Design engineers tend to be more introverted and would prefer not to speak to people to gather needed information.
Job Functions
Pain Points
Topics of Interest
Quality Engineers (QEs), or Supplier Quality Engineers (SQEs), oversee the quality assurance of components and materials sourced from external suppliers. They establish and maintain rigorous quality standards, conduct supplier audits, and drive continuous improvement initiatives to ensure reliability and safety of the final products.
QEs/SQEs are charged with ensuring regulatory compliance, managing supplier relationships, balancing cost and quality, and overseeing risk mitigation and management of their product’s supply chain.
Personality and Background
QEs and SQEs are detail-oriented, analytical, collaborative, and proactive.
Job Functions
Pain Points
Topics of Interest
They are tasked with identifying, researching, & selecting suppliers for the various projects & inner workings of their business. They are focused on end cost per piece, the impact of shipping options available, the reliability of on-time delivery, & the overall quality of the products & services they source.
Once the design engineer compiles the BOM, the buyer reviews all specifically requested parts as well as other components necessary for the project. The first stop is the AVL that’s maintained by the procurement team; they would rather use an existing supplier, as this reduces the cost and the contract negotiations necessary to onboard a new vendor. If they don’t find the appropriate suppliers on the AVL, the external search begins.
Personality and Background
Industrial buyers have strong wills and are familiar with tough contract negotiations. It’s second nature to call a supplier and have lengthy discussions over price and terms. They can read prints and understand CAD files; they have some knowledge about manufacturing and products.
Job Functions
Pain Points
Topics of Interest