Know Your Buyer

We can likely agree that AI is ushering in new waves of change, similar to those created by the introduction of the Internet and mobility. Regardless of our specific job, each has had far reaching implications for how we work and live on a daily basis.

External forces related to change in economics, human behavior or technological advancement can open new opportunities and present new challenges - driving changes at a personal and organizational level.5 Research from organizations like the World Economic Forum and Gartner can help us understand what trends may be relevant to our message.

Spend time to understand if there are forces at play that relate to your solution and how they might help frame the content that you share, boosting relevancy.

With the proliferation of business content across the web, it is easier than ever to get a glimpse into a particular industry. In an effort to demonstrate their expertise, management consulting firms like McKinsey, Accenture, BCG and Bain have created high quality, public analysis that highlights key trends, goals and challenges in an effort to sell their services into industry verticals.

Whenever you are connecting with people in a particular industry, these insights can go a long way in helping to better understand the needs of people within them and connect the dots between your ideas and solution. People receiving your message will greatly appreciate that you have taken time to try to understand the key aspects of their industry.

Most organizations broadcast their priorities and goals well in advance of executing on them. Traditionally we would scour a 10k (annual report) to understand details of an organization, their goals, performance and challenges. Are they trying to expand into a new market or introduce a new product? Are they exploring acquisitions or divestitures? It is important to understand why a business might undertake these activities, providing a window into their priorities and definition for success.

Video platforms like YouTube can offer similar and potentially more nuanced and relevant information. It is common for senior leadership from across an organization to discuss their key initiatives, challenges and strategies. You may find fireside chats, conference presentations, podcasts and interviews that all provide windows into their priorities, efforts and approaches.

Take a moment to understand the basics of their position alongside the peers through a SWOT analysis. By contextualizing your content and ideas based on their lens, it can significantly boost their understanding of how and where you can add material value to their efforts.

Critically, understand what they're trying to accomplish with their customers. Their customers' success is often their primary definition of success.

If you are presenting in a corporate environment as a vendor, this layer will likely have the most influence on how you can shape your content in order to resonate. It can also ladder up to higher level insights at the company and ecosystem levels to build additional relevancy.

As an entity within the organization a business unit or team has specific goals, needs and challenges. Becoming familiar with these needs, how they evaluate their performance and having an understanding of relevant projects helps us to gain more context into what is important for our audience.

If you are presenting a product or service, it is essential to tie your message and capabilities directly to the impact that they would have in this context, ideally quantifying the impact that it would have - potentially reducing cost, increasing conversion or generating specific efficiencies in a process that accelerate their efforts. Social media platforms can offer some clues and insights around these topics, but often these details are gained through conversations prior to connecting with your audience.

If presenting to a smaller or specific audience, take a moment to learn about the people involved at an individual level. Understanding someone's background, role and individual goals can provide the insight we need to develop small nuances in our messages and content, potentially sparking a conversation around a relevant topic that would have otherwise been missed if it had not been framed in this way.

As much as a great storytelling session can highlight the importance of our solutions, understanding how others have benefited carries a significant amount of weight.6 People determine correct behavior by observing others, particularly similar others in uncertain situations. Research shows that social proof from similar reference groups is significantly more persuasive - for example, case studies showing 75% of similar guests reused towels increased reuse by 26%.7 Drawing parallels to experiences of department leaders and organizations similar to your audience help underscore your value and add credibility.

The similarity could come from the type of business, use case, technology or outcome - as long as it has relevancy and value for your audience.

Generative AI gives you data, similar to a Google search. But data without direction is noise. You need to provide the relevance layer for every deal and opportunity, which is exactly what this preparation enables. The more effort you invest in your research, the more precise and relevant your prompts will be, increasing the likelihood that you stumble upon fresh insights that you would otherwise have missed.

Generative AI can help you rapidly connect the dots between your content and your audiences, potentially uncovering new information to shape your narrative (make sure to verify the accuracy of the information). For example, if you know that the organization you are speaking with is trying to reduce costs within their service organization, you could ask ChatGPT for ideas of how that might be accomplished given the type of solution that you are speaking about and the benefits of doing so. Blending this with the above research creates a rich foundation to dial in the relevancy of what you share.