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From Personas to People: Rethinking Customer Understanding in B2B
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For years, B2B marketers have used personas to answer a seemingly simple question: Who are we selling to?
The answer typically takes the form of a profile: job title, company size, industry, geography, responsibilities, pain points, and perhaps a few buying triggers. Personas have helped marketing teams organize audiences and create more targeted campaigns. But the modern B2B buying environment is exposing the limitations of treating these profiles as a complete representation of the customer.
The problem is not that personas are useless. The problem is that people are more complicated than their personas suggest.
B2B decisions increasingly involve multiple stakeholders, extensive independent research, competing priorities, and different perceptions of risk and value. Gartner research cited in the study estimates that complex enterprise buying groups involve 6–10 decision-makers, while Forrester puts the average at 13 decision-makers, with 89% of purchases crossing multiple functions.
At the same time, buyers are increasingly shaping their decisions before speaking with a vendor.
Gartner research indicates that buyers can complete 70–80% of their decision journey before contacting sales, while 6sense reports that 61% of evaluation is completed before a buyer fills out a contact form.
This changes the question marketers need to ask.
It is no longer enough to know who the buyer is.
They need to understand who the people are, what they are trying to achieve, what they fear, how they make decisions, who influences them, and what shapes their perception of a brand before they ever enter the buying process.
That is the shift from personas to people.
Traditional personas assume a degree of stability. A buyer is assigned a role, a set of characteristics, and a collection of presumed needs. But modern B2B buying is rarely that predictable.
The research describes enterprise buying as increasingly complex and lengthy. Gartner reports that 77% of B2B buyers describe their latest purchase as very complex or difficult, while enterprise sales cycles can extend to 11–17 months. The research also cites a 272-day average journey from an initial anonymous interaction to a closed transaction.
During that journey, the buyer's needs and priorities can change. New stakeholders can enter the process. Internal concerns can emerge. New information can alter the evaluation. A persona created months earlier cannot necessarily account for these changes.
The way buyers consume information has changed too. Gartner research indicates that buyers consult an average of 10 digital sources and consume 8–13 pieces of content before engaging a vendor.
And they increasingly want to conduct that research independently. Gartner research cited in the study indicates that 61–75% of B2B buyers prefer a rep-free buying experience.
The implication is important: marketers cannot rely on a persona to explain a buyer's entire decision-making context.
A static profile might tell you that someone is a Chief Information Officer at a large enterprise. It cannot tell you whether that person is currently prioritizing cost reduction, preparing for an infrastructure transformation, dealing with internal resistance, worried about implementation risk, or simply gathering information for a future project.
The persona provides the category. The context provides the understanding.
The biggest challenge to traditional persona thinking may be the assumption that there is one identifiable “buyer.”
In complex B2B purchases, there often isn't.
Gartner estimates that enterprise buying groups involve 6–10 decision-makers, while Forrester reports an average of 13 decision-makers and finds that 89% of purchasing decisions cross multiple functional departments.
Each participant may approach the same purchase differently.
An IT stakeholder may prioritize security and integration. Finance may focus on financial justification. Operations may be concerned about implementation and disruption. A business leader may evaluate strategic impact. An executive sponsor may be focused on organizational risk.
The challenge isn't simply identifying all these people. It is understanding how their perspectives interact.
Gartner reports that 74% of B2B buying groups experience unhealthy conflict during decision-making. The research also notes that each stakeholder independently gathers four to five pieces of information, creating further challenges around alignment.
This makes the traditional lead-centric view increasingly inadequate.
A marketing team may have a highly detailed persona for one stakeholder while missing the dynamics between everyone else involved in the decision.
The answer is not necessarily to create 13 different personas.
It is to understand the buying group as a system of people.
That means recognizing different priorities, information needs, concerns, and influence patterns while understanding that all of them are contributing to the same business decision.
Customer understanding therefore needs to move beyond:
“Who is our target buyer?”
toward:
“Who is involved in this decision, what matters to each person, and what needs to happen for the group to move forward together?”
Another limitation of traditional B2B customer profiles is the assumption that business decisions are primarily rational.
Price matters. ROI matters. Product capabilities matter.
But they are not the whole decision.
The research describes this through the concept of “rationalized emotionality.” Decision-makers can be influenced by concerns such as risk reduction, career security, and personal reputation, and then use rational, data-backed arguments to justify those decisions internally.
This is where the difference between a persona and a person becomes especially important.
A persona might say:
CFO → focused on cost and ROI.
A person might be thinking:
“Can I defend this investment if results take longer than expected?”
A persona might say:
IT Director → focused on security and integration.
A person might be thinking:
“What happens to my team if implementation becomes more complicated than promised?”
These concerns are not irrational. They are part of the real-world context in which B2B decisions happen.
Bain & Company's B2B Elements of Value framework identifies 40 distinct elements of value, spanning functional, operational, individual, and inspirational dimensions. These include traditional factors such as specifications, price, quality, scalability, and innovation, but also individual factors such as reduced anxiety, career advancement, reputation, and personal risk reduction.
This expands the marketer's responsibility.
Understanding customers isn't simply about identifying their business problem.
It means understanding what is at stake for the person trying to solve it.
That is why stronger B2B marketing doesn't stop at demonstrating business value. It also reduces uncertainty, minimizes perceived risk, simplifies the decision, and gives stakeholders confidence that they can defend their choice internally.
If marketers only study customers once they demonstrate buying intent, they are studying a small part of the market.
The research's 95/5 Rule highlights why.
According to the LinkedIn B2B Institute research cited in the study, approximately 95% of target accounts are out of market at any given moment, while only 5% are actively evaluating vendors.
That 95% still matters.
Those organizations may not be ready to buy today, but their future decisions are being shaped by the brands, information, experiences, and ideas they encounter before a formal buying process begins.
The research further cites the LinkedIn B2B Institute finding that 90% of B2B purchases are won by vendors already present in the buyer's “Day-One Consideration Set.”
This makes customer understanding a pre-purchase responsibility.
Marketers need to understand what potential customers care about before they search for a vendor. They need to understand what questions they ask, what risks concern them, what information earns their trust, and what makes a brand memorable.
This is the foundation of Mental Availability: being easy to think of and recognize in relevant buying situations.
The way buyers discover information is evolving as well. The research cites findings that 25% of B2B buyers now use generative AI and answer engines more than traditional search engines when evaluating vendors, while nearly two-thirds use AI at least as often as traditional search. Gartner also projects a 25% decline in traditional search query volume by 2026.
Understanding the customer, therefore, means understanding their information environment, not just their demographic profile.
If customer behavior is constantly changing, customer understanding cannot remain a static document.
It needs to become an ongoing process.
This is where Experience-Led Growth (ELG) becomes relevant. The research defines ELG as an approach that positions customer experience as a primary catalyst for acquisition, retention, and expansion across the customer lifecycle.
The shift is from collecting customer information and periodically updating personas to continuously connecting behavioral signals, customer data, content, and experiences.
Instead of asking only which persona someone belongs to, marketers can ask:
“What has this person engaged with?”
“What are they trying to understand?”
“Where are they encountering friction?”
“What information might help them move forward?”
The research points to real-world examples of this approach.
Adobe's experience-led acquisition model connected media, content, and customer data to continuously evaluate buyer behavior and optimize experiences. The Adobe case in the research reports a 36% quarter-over-quarter revenue increase following automated performance optimization in performance CTV.
Silicon Labs similarly connected account interactions with technical content delivery. The research reports an 88% increase in organic search traffic, a 47% increase in total site traffic, and a 15% increase in conversion rates.
These examples point toward a broader principle: customer understanding becomes more valuable when it actively changes the experience customers receive.
The goal isn't to build a more detailed static profile.
It is to create a living understanding of the customer that evolves as their behavior, needs, and circumstances evolve.
Personas still have a role in B2B marketing. They can help teams define audiences, organize research, and create a shared understanding of target markets.
But they should be treated as a starting point, not the final definition of the customer.
Modern B2B buying is too complex to be reduced to a job title and a list of pain points. Gartner and Forrester research show that purchasing decisions increasingly involve large, cross-functional buying groups. Bain & Company demonstrates that B2B value extends beyond functional benefits into individual and emotional dimensions. The LinkedIn B2B Institute's 95/5 Rule shows that most potential buyers are outside the active market at any given time.
Together, these findings point to a fundamental change in customer understanding.
Know the group, not just the lead.
Understand the motivation, not just the pain point.
Understand the person before they become a buyer.
And turn that understanding into experiences that evolve with them.
The future of B2B marketing isn't about creating increasingly detailed personas.
It is about getting closer to the reality those personas were created to represent.
Because behind every buyer profile is a person. And understanding that person is where better B2B marketing begins.
The answer typically takes the form of a profile: job title, company size, industry, geography, responsibilities, pain points, and perhaps a few buying triggers. Personas have helped marketing teams organize audiences and create more targeted campaigns. But the modern B2B buying environment is exposing the limitations of treating these profiles as a complete representation of the customer.
The problem is not that personas are useless. The problem is that people are more complicated than their personas suggest.
B2B decisions increasingly involve multiple stakeholders, extensive independent research, competing priorities, and different perceptions of risk and value. Gartner research cited in the study estimates that complex enterprise buying groups involve 6–10 decision-makers, while Forrester puts the average at 13 decision-makers, with 89% of purchases crossing multiple functions.
At the same time, buyers are increasingly shaping their decisions before speaking with a vendor.
Gartner research indicates that buyers can complete 70–80% of their decision journey before contacting sales, while 6sense reports that 61% of evaluation is completed before a buyer fills out a contact form.
This changes the question marketers need to ask.
It is no longer enough to know who the buyer is.
They need to understand who the people are, what they are trying to achieve, what they fear, how they make decisions, who influences them, and what shapes their perception of a brand before they ever enter the buying process.
That is the shift from personas to people.
Why Static Personas No Longer Reflect Modern B2B Buying
Traditional personas assume a degree of stability. A buyer is assigned a role, a set of characteristics, and a collection of presumed needs. But modern B2B buying is rarely that predictable.
The research describes enterprise buying as increasingly complex and lengthy. Gartner reports that 77% of B2B buyers describe their latest purchase as very complex or difficult, while enterprise sales cycles can extend to 11–17 months. The research also cites a 272-day average journey from an initial anonymous interaction to a closed transaction.
During that journey, the buyer's needs and priorities can change. New stakeholders can enter the process. Internal concerns can emerge. New information can alter the evaluation. A persona created months earlier cannot necessarily account for these changes.
The way buyers consume information has changed too. Gartner research indicates that buyers consult an average of 10 digital sources and consume 8–13 pieces of content before engaging a vendor.
And they increasingly want to conduct that research independently. Gartner research cited in the study indicates that 61–75% of B2B buyers prefer a rep-free buying experience.
The implication is important: marketers cannot rely on a persona to explain a buyer's entire decision-making context.
A static profile might tell you that someone is a Chief Information Officer at a large enterprise. It cannot tell you whether that person is currently prioritizing cost reduction, preparing for an infrastructure transformation, dealing with internal resistance, worried about implementation risk, or simply gathering information for a future project.
The persona provides the category. The context provides the understanding.
The Buyer Is Not One Person: Understanding The Buying Group
The biggest challenge to traditional persona thinking may be the assumption that there is one identifiable “buyer.”
In complex B2B purchases, there often isn't.
Gartner estimates that enterprise buying groups involve 6–10 decision-makers, while Forrester reports an average of 13 decision-makers and finds that 89% of purchasing decisions cross multiple functional departments.
Each participant may approach the same purchase differently.
An IT stakeholder may prioritize security and integration. Finance may focus on financial justification. Operations may be concerned about implementation and disruption. A business leader may evaluate strategic impact. An executive sponsor may be focused on organizational risk.
The challenge isn't simply identifying all these people. It is understanding how their perspectives interact.
Gartner reports that 74% of B2B buying groups experience unhealthy conflict during decision-making. The research also notes that each stakeholder independently gathers four to five pieces of information, creating further challenges around alignment.
This makes the traditional lead-centric view increasingly inadequate.
A marketing team may have a highly detailed persona for one stakeholder while missing the dynamics between everyone else involved in the decision.
The answer is not necessarily to create 13 different personas.
It is to understand the buying group as a system of people.
That means recognizing different priorities, information needs, concerns, and influence patterns while understanding that all of them are contributing to the same business decision.
Customer understanding therefore needs to move beyond:
“Who is our target buyer?”
toward:
“Who is involved in this decision, what matters to each person, and what needs to happen for the group to move forward together?”
Beyond ROI: The Human Drivers Behind B2B Decisions
Another limitation of traditional B2B customer profiles is the assumption that business decisions are primarily rational.
Price matters. ROI matters. Product capabilities matter.
But they are not the whole decision.
The research describes this through the concept of “rationalized emotionality.” Decision-makers can be influenced by concerns such as risk reduction, career security, and personal reputation, and then use rational, data-backed arguments to justify those decisions internally.
This is where the difference between a persona and a person becomes especially important.
A persona might say:
CFO → focused on cost and ROI.
A person might be thinking:
“Can I defend this investment if results take longer than expected?”
A persona might say:
IT Director → focused on security and integration.
A person might be thinking:
“What happens to my team if implementation becomes more complicated than promised?”
These concerns are not irrational. They are part of the real-world context in which B2B decisions happen.
Bain & Company's B2B Elements of Value framework identifies 40 distinct elements of value, spanning functional, operational, individual, and inspirational dimensions. These include traditional factors such as specifications, price, quality, scalability, and innovation, but also individual factors such as reduced anxiety, career advancement, reputation, and personal risk reduction.
This expands the marketer's responsibility.
Understanding customers isn't simply about identifying their business problem.
It means understanding what is at stake for the person trying to solve it.
That is why stronger B2B marketing doesn't stop at demonstrating business value. It also reduces uncertainty, minimizes perceived risk, simplifies the decision, and gives stakeholders confidence that they can defend their choice internally.
Customer Understanding Starts Before The Buying Moment
If marketers only study customers once they demonstrate buying intent, they are studying a small part of the market.
The research's 95/5 Rule highlights why.
According to the LinkedIn B2B Institute research cited in the study, approximately 95% of target accounts are out of market at any given moment, while only 5% are actively evaluating vendors.
That 95% still matters.
Those organizations may not be ready to buy today, but their future decisions are being shaped by the brands, information, experiences, and ideas they encounter before a formal buying process begins.
The research further cites the LinkedIn B2B Institute finding that 90% of B2B purchases are won by vendors already present in the buyer's “Day-One Consideration Set.”
This makes customer understanding a pre-purchase responsibility.
Marketers need to understand what potential customers care about before they search for a vendor. They need to understand what questions they ask, what risks concern them, what information earns their trust, and what makes a brand memorable.
This is the foundation of Mental Availability: being easy to think of and recognize in relevant buying situations.
The way buyers discover information is evolving as well. The research cites findings that 25% of B2B buyers now use generative AI and answer engines more than traditional search engines when evaluating vendors, while nearly two-thirds use AI at least as often as traditional search. Gartner also projects a 25% decline in traditional search query volume by 2026.
Understanding the customer, therefore, means understanding their information environment, not just their demographic profile.
From Static Profiles To Dynamic Customer Experiences
If customer behavior is constantly changing, customer understanding cannot remain a static document.
It needs to become an ongoing process.
This is where Experience-Led Growth (ELG) becomes relevant. The research defines ELG as an approach that positions customer experience as a primary catalyst for acquisition, retention, and expansion across the customer lifecycle.
The shift is from collecting customer information and periodically updating personas to continuously connecting behavioral signals, customer data, content, and experiences.
Instead of asking only which persona someone belongs to, marketers can ask:
“What has this person engaged with?”
“What are they trying to understand?”
“Where are they encountering friction?”
“What information might help them move forward?”
The research points to real-world examples of this approach.
Adobe's experience-led acquisition model connected media, content, and customer data to continuously evaluate buyer behavior and optimize experiences. The Adobe case in the research reports a 36% quarter-over-quarter revenue increase following automated performance optimization in performance CTV.
Silicon Labs similarly connected account interactions with technical content delivery. The research reports an 88% increase in organic search traffic, a 47% increase in total site traffic, and a 15% increase in conversion rates.
These examples point toward a broader principle: customer understanding becomes more valuable when it actively changes the experience customers receive.
The goal isn't to build a more detailed static profile.
It is to create a living understanding of the customer that evolves as their behavior, needs, and circumstances evolve.
Conclusion
Personas still have a role in B2B marketing. They can help teams define audiences, organize research, and create a shared understanding of target markets.
But they should be treated as a starting point, not the final definition of the customer.
Modern B2B buying is too complex to be reduced to a job title and a list of pain points. Gartner and Forrester research show that purchasing decisions increasingly involve large, cross-functional buying groups. Bain & Company demonstrates that B2B value extends beyond functional benefits into individual and emotional dimensions. The LinkedIn B2B Institute's 95/5 Rule shows that most potential buyers are outside the active market at any given time.
Together, these findings point to a fundamental change in customer understanding.
Know the group, not just the lead.
Understand the motivation, not just the pain point.
Understand the person before they become a buyer.
And turn that understanding into experiences that evolve with them.
The future of B2B marketing isn't about creating increasingly detailed personas.
It is about getting closer to the reality those personas were created to represent.
Because behind every buyer profile is a person. And understanding that person is where better B2B marketing begins.
Tue, Aug 18, 2026
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