Numerous B2B technology companies struggle to effectively address the tangible market challenges that their products or services tackle. While it’s natural to emphasize the technical intricacies that the product embodies – given the tremendous effort invested in its creation – these technical facets often immerse the buyer in a labyrinth of jargon. Regrettably, this leaves them grappling with confusion and a lack of relatability.
This is where the concept of the buyer matrix comes into play. The Buyer Matrix involves aligning your product’s features with the marketplace’s actual needs, resolving the genuine issues your buyers are trying to solve. We’ve devised a practical approach to charting product features within the Buyer Matrix framework. We’ve recently revamped our own capabilities to be more market- and problem-centric, rendering it an ideal method to illustrate the process. A visual representation of this concept can be found in the mind map we’ve crafted.
1. Customers: Identify your target audience(s).
These are your buyer personas, starting with their title. We identified about seven buyer personas in total. Many shared a common title or position within different company types (SMB, enterprise, startup, growth-stage). You’ll probably have more than one. For instance, within the small-to-mid-size business category, our personas are a CEO, and a marketing lead and a sales lead (both Director or VP-level).
2. Problems: Document the problems they face.
If you know your customers, this should be easy. If not, ask them. Talk to them directly and find out what keeps them up at night. They will be happy to tell you.
What we found is that most of our buyers had similar problems: the need to look “bigger” than they were, trouble articulating what they and their product do, a lack of sales leads, difficulty attracting investment, an underdeveloped marketing department (or no marketing department at all), and a few others.
3. Solutions: Frame these problems into a solutions-driven narrative.
Once we understood the common problems our personas were facing, we reflected those back to them through our web copy. For instance, the problem our buyer is trying to solve isn’t that their website is outdated; it’s that they need an online presence that communicates the sophistication of their solution to prospective buyers. We created narratives around these issues and how our capabilities contribute to solving them.
Upon completing our buyer matrix, all the pieces seamlessly interconnected. Rather than highlighting individual offerings such as website design, digital marketing, content strategy, or PR and strategic communications, we devised solutions like “Product Launch,” “Funnel Filling,” “Enhanced Visibility,” “Complex Project Management,” and “Elevated Brand Presence.”
These solutions address the recurring challenges our market consistently grapples with. We leverage a fusion of our diverse capabilities to resolve these issues. While there’s no scarcity of web designers, few possess the expertise to purposefully craft a website that not only captures sales leads but also conveys a crystal-clear brand message, elevates search visibility, and enhances a company’s allure for potential clients and investors.
