A fictional persona won't tell you why a deal stalled. A business problem will. But for years, B2B marketing teams have built their strategies around buyer personas: "Maggie the Manufacturing Director," "CTO Carl," and "Procurement Paula." These templates are meant to help us empathize. But instead of driving clarity, they often distract us from what buyers actually need.
The result? Content that checks boxes but doesn't create traction. Campaigns that look good on paper but fall flat in the pipeline. Marketers who know who they're talking to but not why that person would care.
Most buyer personas are built to humanize the customer. But in practice, they often oversimplify them.
They rely on:
None of these tells you why someone will say yes, no, or not now.
Real buyers act under pressure. A system isn't working, a deadline is approaching, or a budget is about to be cut. They move because they feel risk or see a clear, credible way forward.
On the other hand, persona-based marketing tends to play it safe. It's well-intentioned, but it leads to messaging that's soft around the edges. Professional-sounding, yet unconvincing. It often says the right thing but fails to say anything that matters.
Instead of asking, "Who is the buyer?"
Ask: "What's the problem they need to solve—urgently?"
Problem-first marketing flips the strategy:
| Persona-Based Messaging | Problem-First Messaging |
| “As a Head of IT, you care about uptime.” | “Your team spends 6 hours/week resolving alerts. Let’s cut that in half.” |
| “As a VP of Ops, efficiency is a priority.” | “Delayed machine data costs your floor $30K/month. Here’s how to fix it.” |
| “CFOs want visibility into financial performance.” | “Your month-end close takes 12 days. That delay is costing investor confidence.” |
| “Marketing leaders want to drive engagement.” | “Your MQL-to-opportunity rate dropped 40% this quarter. Let’s fix the disconnect.” |
Problem-based messaging:
When you align your campaigns, assets, and offers around problem narratives, your lead gen doesn't just attract names. It activates qualified conversations.
Here are the top 5 action items to guide your messaging reframe:
A problem-first mindset doesn't just improve your copy. It transforms how your campaigns perform.
When your marketing starts with clear, tangible buyer problems:
Meanwhile, persona-based campaigns tend to generate surface-level engagement:
If your lead generation isn’t producing qualified conversations, or your pipeline is filled with leads that don’t convert, your messaging may be the problem. It’s likely focused on fictional personas instead of real business challenges.
Problem-first marketing becomes your campaign blueprint:
It's not just smarter messaging. It's a better system for building a pipeline that converts.
It's time to retire the imaginary buyer with a clever name and a vague job description.
When you build your marketing around urgent business problems, you don't just generate leads. You create clarity. You make it easier for buyers to start conversations, make decisions, and champion change inside their organizations.
The best-performing B2B lead generation campaigns today don't start with personas. They begin with questions like:
That's the shift from marketing that speaks about the buyer to marketing that works for the buyer.