Developing personas is a big part of Website team due diligence these days— especially when teams are rethinking their sites and staging for the next generation. They start by creating a list of the types of people who buy their products and visit their site. Project and business managers. Tech heads. CXOs (in their dreams). Well, you get the idea.

After the players are identified, the next step is an exhaustive drill down into what each visitor does, and the types of content a well-dressed Website needs to serve them. All of this heavy lifting usually results in a complex schematic of activities and values that act as a guidepost to keep the team on point.

Funny thing, though. This work never seems to show up on Websites.

My guess is that it is easier to profile and document personas than turn their needs into actionable content or click streams. That makes persona development a great internal discipline to laser focus teams and stakeholders on core objectives, but not much of a bonanza from the outside in.

Or is it?

I’m putting the finishing touches on a new report about how Web teams can map their Websites to the complex B2B buying process. That’s the process your biggest customers use to select and buy products. Here, the goal of your Website is to corral task forces and committees, give them the information and tools they need to gain consensus, collapse the decision process from 30+ to 18 weeks, and lower your cost of sales.

As it turns out, personas can play a huge role in mastering this process on a Website. Instead of limiting your view to the persona’s tasks, content preferences, or organizational affiliation, consider each persona’s role in the buying process. You’ll be amazed at the lessons you can learn.

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