Persona-Based Marketing or PBM for short is one of the approaches in digital marketing along with Account-Based Marketing (ABM), Product-Led Growth (PLG), Inbound Marketing, Demand Generation and Performance Marketing. PBM is closest to ABM and Inbound Marketing, but differs in more detailed personalization for each role within the buying committee. Unlike ABM, which focuses on companies as a whole, Persona-Based Marketing delves into the individual needs of key people within these companies.
The difference compared to marketing segmentation by industries or job titles, PBM focuses on individual pain points, motives, and decision-making criteria for each role within the buying committee. Today, B2B buyers expect a personalized approach and demand that marketing be tailored to their tasks and context. According to Gartner, 77% of B2B companies consider the purchasing process complex and overloaded. The reason is that decisions are made not by one person, but by a group of stakeholders with different interests and levels of influence. If your marketing message does not meet their needs, competitors gain an advantage.
Persona-Based Marketing solves this problem by segmenting the target audience by specific role models and analyzing their pain points, motivations and decision triggers. Instead of working with abstract industry categories, marketing is built on a clear understanding of the needs of each group within the buying committee.
Companies like HubSpot, Salesforce and Drift have long used PBM to tailor marketing messages to different roles in the purchasing process. The CFO requires proof of profitability, the CMO seeks scaling strategies, the CTO assesses integration risks. A one-size-fits-all message does not work. Persona-Based Marketing allows you to customize content and communications for each participant in the transaction.
We at M1-project have developed the ICP Generator and Marketing Strategy Builder tools that allow you to create detailed personas based on real data, not assumptions. This reduces uncertainty and helps to build a holistic Persona-Based Marketing in both B2C and B2B-oriented companies. In this article, we will analyze what Persona-Based Marketing is, why it is so effective for B2B and how to build a strategy that leads to results.
What is Persona Based Marketing?
Persona Based Marketing (PBM) is a B2B marketing method where the strategy is built around specific buyer role models rather than broad audience segments. Persona-Based Marketing is based on a detailed study of the pain points, motives and behavior of key participants in the decision-making process, which allows you to adapt communications at each stage of the transaction.
Companies begin to use PBM when they face a number of limitations in traditional strategies. Key criteria that push marketing teams to switch to PBM:
Complex deals with a long decision-making cycle. In B2B, sales rarely happen instantly. If the funnel consists of several stages, and the deal lasts 3-6 months or longer, mass marketing loses its effectiveness. In such cases, PBM helps to work with each member of the buying committee personally, influencing the decision-making process.
Different purchase triggers among the target audience. In the same company, different specialists evaluate the product from different angles. If the marketing strategy does not take into account which arguments are important to the CTO, CFO and CMO, the campaign is not relevant enough. PBM helps avoid this problem through personalized content.
Drop in engagement and conversion. If traditional marketing campaigns attract traffic but fail to convert it into leads and SQL, this is a signal that marketing is not personalized enough. Persona-Based Marketing allows you to not only generate interest, but also bring customers to the decision-making stage.
Increased competition in the niche. In highly competitive markets, standard marketing strategies quickly become obsolete. When a product is difficult to differentiate, PBM allows you to stand out through deep work with specific role models, rather than superficial coverage.
Complex or innovative products. If a product requires a detailed explanation of value or changes in the client's business processes, PBM allows you to adapt marketing materials to different levels of knowledge and roles within the organization.
According to McKinsey, companies using personalized marketing strategies increase conversion by 30%, and deals with a high degree of personalization are closed 40% faster. This makes PBM an important tool for SaaS companies operating in competitive niches, where buyers demand proof of product value at different levels of decision-making.
Strong examples of using Persona-Based Marketing are companies such as Gong and Outreach, which implement personalized approaches for marketing and sales, forming different scenarios of interaction with the marketing, operational and commercial teams of their clients.
PBM is effective in B2B sales with a long transaction cycle, especially in SaaS, FinTech and complex technology products, where standard marketing approaches do not provide the necessary level of engagement and trust.
PBM is ineffective in B2C marketing with a mass audience, where personalization does not provide significant benefits. For e-commerce and FMCG, where reach is important, Inbound Marketing and Performance Marketing work better. This approach is also not suitable for products with a short transaction cycle, when the purchase decision is made instantly, as is the case with SaaS tools with a low entry threshold, streaming services and digital goods. Here, Persona-Based Marketing does not provide additional value, and PLG and Growth Marketing strategies are more effective. In low-margin segments, PBM is also not justified, since detailed persona development requires time and resources, and the return on investment does not cover these efforts. Another limitation is early-stage startups. Until the company has tested the market and defined its ICP, PBM may be premature. In such cases, it is better to focus on broad demand generation and hypothesis testing to understand which audience segments are better converted into customers.
Why Persona-Based Marketing is Effective in B2B
B2B sales are rarely impulsive. Unlike B2C, where the end buyer makes a decision independently, B2B purchases go through a complex approval process involving several people. Gartner notes that the average B2B deal involves 6 to 10 stakeholders, each with their own motivations, pain points, and evaluation criteria, so a universal marketing message simply won’t have an effect.
Persona-Based Marketing is effective because it allows you to take into account the specifics of each role in the buying committee. When a marketing strategy is built not around a general industry or position, but around persons with clearly defined needs, marketing becomes a precise tool for influence, rather than mass coverage without specifics. For example, in the sale of corporate SaaS, the CFO expects evidence of return on investment, the IT director focuses on security and integration, and operations teams analyze usability. Without PBM, marketing materials risk becoming too general and losing relevance.
Another factor that makes PBM effective in B2B is its impact on decision-making speed. According to Forrester, 62% of B2B buyers prefer companies that demonstrate a clear understanding of their problems and offer relevant solutions. A personalized approach speeds up the deal approval process and reduces the likelihood that the client will delay the decision or go to competitors.
Companies that use PBM record higher engagement rates, as the content becomes valuable for each participant in the transaction. At M1-Project, we see that when working with B2B companies, the greatest effect is achieved by combining PBM with data-driven audience analysis. When a marketing strategy is built not on assumptions, but on specific data, marketing campaigns become not only effective, but also predictable.
How to Build Effective Personas for PBM
Persona-Based Marketing only works when marketing personas reflect real buyers, not just template descriptions. Mistakes at the creation stage lead to personalization becoming superficial, and marketing messages not resonating with the audience.
Step 1. Collecting data on target buyers
At this stage, it is important to deeply understand who and how makes purchasing decisions. Just knowing the job titles is not enough. B2B sales involves different stakeholders, each with their own interests and pain points. You need to understand what triggers make them look for a solution, what problems they are trying to solve, and where they look for information. These can be internal inefficiencies, competitive pressures, or changes in the industry.
Step 2. Forming role models
After collecting data, it is necessary to identify the key participants of the buying committee and their priorities. The same product is perceived differently: the CEO focuses on strategic growth, the CTO assesses technological risks, the CMO looks at the impact on marketing metrics, and operational managers analyze the ease of implementation. If personas are built only on the basis of positions and not real business tasks, PBM loses its effectiveness.
Step 3. Creating behavior scenarios
Personas should not be a static list of characteristics, but reflect the real customer path to purchase. You need to understand which touchpoints influence the decision-making process, what questions arise at each stage and what objections can slow down the deal. This is the only way to build personalized communication that will work.
Step 4. Testing and optimizing personas
Personas cannot remain unchanged. If the market changes, if deals are more difficult or competitors offer new solutions, the PBM strategy must adapt. To do this, you need to regularly analyze data in the CRM, conduct interviews with clients and check to what extent personalized messages actually lead to conversion.
Common mistakes while creating a persona
Mistake 1: Using assumptions instead of data
If personas are built without market analysis, they turn into abstract avatars, not real buyers. This leads to ineffective marketing campaigns.
Mistake 2: Personas are too broad or too narrow
If they are generalized, the value of personalization is lost. If they are too detailed, the marketing strategy becomes complex and ineffective.
Mistake 3: No behavior scenarios
Simply knowing what the target client does is not enough. It is important to understand how they make decisions, what fears and doubts they have, what internal processes can slow down the deal.
Mistake 4: Lack of updating and testing
If personas are not revised, marketing lags behind reality. Strategies that worked a year ago may stop producing results.
From our point of view, PBM must be based on live data and constantly adapt, otherwise personalization becomes a formality.
How to Personalize Messaging Across Channels
You need to understand how your key customers consume information. If the CFO studies analytical reports and reads business media, and the Head of Operations looks for solutions to optimize work processes, a universal marketing message will lose its effectiveness. Persona-Based Marketing only works when communication is adapted not only to the people themselves, but also to the environment in which they make decisions.
First, it is important to determine which channels are best suited for interacting with each persona. In B2B marketing, email newsletters, LinkedIn, webinars, blogs, and industry media most often work. Different roles perceive content differently. CFOs pay attention to economic benefits. Operations managers focus on automation of work processes. Product managers evaluate flexibility and ease of customization. It would be a mistake to use a single format for everyone, expecting the audience to figure out what is valuable to them.
Then it is necessary to adapt the tone and key arguments for each channel. Email campaigns should take into account what stage the potential client is at. If this is the first touch, it is important to provide a general understanding of the product's value. If the client is already familiar with your solution, the content should close specific objections. Content marketing in the blog should answer the pain points of each audience segment.
Head of Operations finds it useful to read materials that analyze ways to speed up approval processes, automate routine tasks, and increase the transparency of teams. Product Managers are interested in platform flexibility and customization options. Revenue Operations Managers are looking for solutions that help establish cross-team interaction and avoid data fragmentation. If the content does not answer specific audience questions, it will not create engagement.
Additionally, it is worth using personalized advertising. The classic performance approach does not work here. Hypertargeting via LinkedIn Ads, Google Custom Audiences, and retargeting based on CRM data allows you to show different ads to different people. A gross mistake is to use the same advertising message for the entire audience. Head of Operations expects to see examples of process automation, and Product Manager pays attention to cases demonstrating the flexibility of customization.
For personalized messages to actually lead to conversion, marketing and sales must work in sync. When a potential client interacts with content, their behavior is recorded in the CRM. As a result, the sales team receives information about their interests and triggers. If this process is built correctly, commercial offers and follow-ups become a logical continuation of marketing communications, and not a disjointed stream of random messages.
A common mistake is superficial personalization, which is limited to inserting a name in an email. Another common problem is using the same message across all channels. Personalization should not be limited to duplicating content. It should take into account the context and way of consuming information. We at the M1-Project team see that the maximum effect is achieved by a strategy in which personalization does not just create a sense of an individual approach, but actually facilitates the decision-making process for the client.
Case Stages: How SaaS Leaders Leverage Persona-Based Marketing for Growth
Those companies that implement Persona-Based Marketing report not only greater audience engagement, but real conversion boosts and sped-up deals. It is especially evident in B2B SaaS, where the purchasing process is done by many stakeholders, and a tailored approach affects every part of the sales funnel. Let's observe how PBM is used in practice.
Airtable: Personalized Landing Pages and Email Campaigns
Airtable uses PBM to segment its audience into primary groups, including marketing teams, product managers, and operations teams. Airtable personalizes content for every group, creating tailored landing pages, email campaigns, and ads. They show marketers use cases for campaign management. Product managers are offered scenarios for organizing workflows. Operations managers are shown cases for automating business processes. This approach increased user engagement by 32 percent and reduced the time it took to make a purchase decision.
Notion: personalized onboarding and content
Notion uses PBM in combination with product-led growth. The company focuses on the needs of individual roles, offering personalized onboarding scenarios and educational content. For HR teams, Notion promotes solutions for managing internal documents. For designers, it focuses on the structure of storing creative materials. For technical teams, it offers documentation on APIs and integrations. This approach helped increase retention among business users by 28 percent.
Monday.com: email marketing and content strategy
Monday.com actively uses PBM in email marketing and content strategy. All communication is built taking into account the specifics of the target audience. Financial directors receive ROI calculations and cost reduction cases. Operations teams receive instructions on implementing and optimizing processes. This approach allowed Monday.com to increase the conversion from the test period to paid users by 25 percent.
PBM as a Strategic Advantage for SaaS
Persona-Based Marketing delivers the best results when companies don't just tailor messages to the audience, but completely build marketing around the real pains and tasks of their customers. We at M1-Project see that SaaS companies that work deeply with PBM not only accelerate deals, but also increase the lifetime value of their customers.
Conclusion
Today, persona-based marketing is among the leading strategies B2B SaaS companies utilize to accelerate deals, increase engagement, and be heard amidst competition. In contrast to mass segmentation typical of traditional marketing, PBM allows you to design communications based on the specific needs and pain points of every member of the buying committee.
Companies embracing PBM experience conversions increase and decision time decreases. Airtable achieved a 32 percent increase in engagement with targeted landing pages and email campaigns. Notion increased business user retention by 28 percent by employing segmented onboarding content. Monday.com achieved a 25 percent boost in conversion from a trial period to paid users through targeted email campaigns. These instances validate that PBM produces quantifiable results when it relies on in-depth audience analysis, message customization, and marketing-sales alignment.
The key to PBM is handling real data, not fictional profiles. Personalization can't be an advertising trick, but a part of the company strategy. We at M1-Project are confident that the best advertising campaigns are supported by real facts, prompt communication, and close familiarity with customer needs. That's why PBM is not a strategy, but a long-term competitive advantage.
.svg)
