Buyer Center: Why a persona is not enough in B2B

Imagine you are the sales manager of a software company and have created the perfect data-driven persona for your target group: Christoph M., 38 years old, project manager of a medium-sized mechanical engineering company. You know exactly what drives him, what challenges he has to overcome in his day-to-day work and what arguments convince him. But then the following happens: Christoph shows interest in your software, gives you positive feedback - and yet in the end he opts for the competitor's solution. Why?

The answer lies in the buyer center. This is because, particularly in the B2B environment, several parties from different departments are usually involved in a purchase decision. They all have their own interests, priorities and concerns that need to be taken into account when purchasing a product or service. If you don't take this into account, even the best data-driven persona risks coming to nothing.

What is a Buyer Center?

A buyer center (also known as a buying center) refers to people within a company who are jointly involved in a purchasing decision. The complexity of the buyer center varies depending on the size of the company, industry or department. For example, managing directors in SMEs are usually the main decision-makers when it comes to purchasing B2B products or services. Employees then primarily have an advisory role in complex purchasing decisions. IT management and purchasing are usually involved in the purchase of new software, while the buyer center in the capital goods industry is made up of purchasing and production management. In principle, however, the buyer center is made up of at least two or three people who each take on one or more of the following roles:

• Initiators recognize the problem and get the purchasing process rolling. In the example above, this could be the project management or IT employees who realize that the current software is inefficient.
• Influencers make recommendations and thus influence the decision. In addition to experienced employees, management consultants also take on the role of influencers.
• Decision-makers such as team leads, the CFO or CEO usually make the final purchase decision.
• Buyers are responsible for contract negotiations and purchasing, such as the head of the sales department.
• Users such as developers who use software work with the product and therefore have specific requirements.
• Gatekeepers, including the management assistant or an IT security officer, control the flow of information.
• Other stakeholders can be different parties in the purchasing process, such as legal, compliance, works council, etc.

The tasks of the B2B Buyer Center

The complexity of B2B purchases is reflected not only in the distribution of roles in the buyer center but also in the purchasing process itself. Unlike in B2C, B2B buying processes are rarely linear, but are associated with different tasks and questions for the buyers, which a company reviews at least once each, according to Gartner's B2B Buying Report:

• Identify problems: "We have to do something about [challenge 1, 2, 3 ...]."
• Finding solutions: "Who or what can solve our problem?"
• Define requirements: "What exactly do we want to achieve with [solution 1, 2, 3 ...]?"
• Selection of suppliers and/or service providers: "Does the solution fulfill what we need to really solve our problem?"
• Review: "We believe we have made the right choice, but we need to be sure."
• Involving other stakeholders: "We need to inform and educate everyone involved."

Why a B2B persona is not enough

The fact is that the number of people involved in a purchase decision and the complexity of the buying journey are constantly increasing. This also means that companies that offer B2B products or services have to adapt to a more complex buying center. This is accompanied by the challenge of aligning their own marketing and sales strategy with the different needs of the respective stakeholders. But the effort pays off: Studies show that customer-centric companies are 60 percent more successful and spend 10 to 20 percent less marketing budget in the process. data-driven personas play a decisive role in this: according to the study, 71 percent of companies that exceed their sales targets work with data-based personas. The prerequisite: the persona strategy fits the business model. B2B companies in particular that only create one persona run the risk of ignoring important stakeholders in the buyer center. Let's take the example of a SaaS provider for project management software:

• The project management (initiator) sees the need to introduce a more efficient tool.
• The IT management (influencer:in) wants a solution that can be seamlessly integrated into existing systems.
• The management (decision-makers) attach importance to cost-benefit analysis and long-term savings.
• Purchasing management wants to negotiate the best contract terms and checks compliance and legal issues in the context of software deployment.
• Employees (users) want intuitive operation and as few changes as possible.

Without a well thought-out buyer center concept, it can happen that the marketing, as in the example above, is tailored to the project management, but does not convince the management - and thus the entire sales process fails.

Challenges of B2B companies

Many B2B companies face the following problems in sales and marketing:

Lack of overview of all stakeholders

Marketing and sales strategies often focus only on the obvious decision-maker and overlook important stakeholders.

For example, an industrial software company focuses its marketing campaign exclusively on the management of the IT department. Although they are convinced, the management blocks the purchase because no clear ROI has been presented. The breakthrough only came when the company put together targeted information material for the CFO.

Contradictory requirements

Decision-makers from different areas, such as IT, finance and the actual users of a product, often have different priorities.

If, for example, a mechanical engineering company is looking for new ERP software, the relevant service providers need a well thought-out marketing and sales strategy that takes the respective needs into account. Why? While the IT department attaches importance to security and simple integration into existing applications, the actual users are looking for ease of use. The finance department, on the other hand, wants to reduce costs, while project managers want to increase the efficiency of their teams. Without a coordinated strategy, the purchasing process fails several times until sales and marketing specifically address the various requirements of all stakeholders.

Long decision-making process

Unlike in B2C, a purchase decision in B2B can take months. This is often due to the concerns of different stakeholders, complex hierarchical structures and faltering communication processes. What helps: A strategy that takes all disruptive factors into account at an early stage.

An example: A manufacturer of automation solutions has been waiting six months for a customer's final decision. The reason? The purchasing management has concerns about the contract term, while the technical management wants to wait for the final test reports. The decision is only made thanks to a targeted communication strategy that addresses all concerns.

Internal power structures

It happens time and again that individual departments block a purchase decision out of self-interest.

Imagine, for example, that a company wants to introduce a cloud-based CRM solution. The sales management is enthusiastic, but the internal IT department is reluctant for fear of losing control. Only after the IT department was actively involved in the selection process and their concerns were taken into account was the company able to implement the new software.

The digital buying journey

A trend that has long since established itself in the B2C sector is also becoming increasingly important in the B2B sector: the digital buying journey. According to the latest B2B Buyer Report 2025 from Sana, 73% of B2B buyers prefer to purchase B2B products online. In concrete terms, this means that companies looking for B2B products or services first research and compare relevant providers on their websites and social media channels before making direct contact, if at all. This also means that the time at which personal contact is made is increasingly being pushed back in the buyer journey or not made at all. The good news is that those who optimize the digital buying journey for the buyer center have a clear competitive advantage. This is because 75% of B2B buyers would choose the provider that offers a better online buying experience over comparable providers. The biggest challenge for B2B companies is therefore to take the above-mentioned challenges into account in the digital buyer journey and offer tailor-made solutions for the buyer center. Marketing departments must therefore personalize digital touchpoints and prepare websites and communication channels in such a way that they offer maximum added value to all stakeholders, even without personal contact.

For example, a provider of industrial automation could find that its website hardly generates any leads despite its strong portfolio. An analysis shows that technical decision-makers, CFOs and purchasers cannot find the information they need online to make a pre-selection. After redesigning the website - with personalized content, clear product comparisons, ROI calculators for CFOs and specific FAQs for buyers - the number of qualified inquiries increased significantly.

The solution: Develop buyer center personas

The good news: with the right persona strategy, these challenges can be overcome - and marketing and sales strategies can be successfully optimized. The solution: Identify the buyer center and specifically develop a persona for each stakeholder. The Persona Institute helps here with a proven approach :

1. Identification: In a consultation, the Persona Institute works with you to identify the buyer center, i.e. all those involved in the purchase decision for your product or service.
2. Analysis of the buyer center: The Persona Institute determines the individual interests and challenges of the buyer center in an extensive data analysis with internal customer data and by means of further market research.
3. Development of detailed persona sedcards: Based on this data, the Persona Institute develops a separate target group matrix and a persona sedcard with demographic data and information on character, role in the company, challenges, etc. for everyone involved in the purchasing process.
4. Data-based recommendations for action: Using the sedcard, the Persona Institute creates a playbook with data-based recommendations for action that match your individual marketing and sales strategy.
5. Development of targeted content: With the help of the Persona-Sedcard and the Playbook, you can optimize content and strategies for your buyer center. If required, the Persona Institute can provide support at this point with further workshops.

How a differentiated persona strategy leads to success

Let's recall the example at the beginning of the text. The initial situation: Despite your data-based persona (Christoph, the project manager), you are having difficulties acquiring new customers. The problem: An analysis reveals that your marketing and sales strategy focused almost exclusively on the project management of potential customers, but ignored CFOs and purchasing departments. By developing a comprehensive persona strategy that takes the entire buyer center into account, your approach changes:

• Project managers receive technical white papers with integration examples.
• Business cases for CFOs show where there is potential for savings and include ROI calculations.
• Target buyers with checklists and sample contracts
• Users receive training material and demos of the software.
• You can integrate these formats into a clearly structured website as a self-service with support function.

The result? Decision-making processes take less time and the willingness to buy increases - as all stakeholders feel equally addressed.

Buyer Center Personas for your sales success

In B2B, a single persona is not enough because purchasing decisions are complex and dependent on several players. Companies that understand their buyer center and address it in a targeted manner have a decisive competitive advantage. The Persona Institute supports you in identifying roles in the buyer center and developing tailor-made personas and suitable strategies for them - so that you can convince your customers at all levels.