Appealing to Four Categories of B2B Decision Makers

Do you know the four information preferences of B2B decision-makers? If you don’t, you should. 

Bryan Eisenberg writes in an article at ClickZ that business decision-makers fall into one of four preference categories: methodical, spontaneous, humanistic or competitive.  Most people favor one of these decision-making styles. 

Depending on the style of decision maker you are trying to reach,  you will want to set up your Web pages in certain ways.

For instance, the humanistic style decision maker is a people person. Therefore you’ll want to emphasize client testimonials, as they value testimonials above the other kinds of information for deciding on a product’s or service’s value.  

This is helpful information.  But I have two questions:

(1) How do you predict which type of decision maker will arrive on your Web page? Do you try to include something for each style of decision maker? Or do you set up your pages to appeal to one particular type of decision maker, to the exclusion of other types? 

(2) Do small business owners tend to fall into one preference category versus others?  I think not — in fact, there is danger in stereotyping.  Small business owners run the gamut of all different types, depending on the industry they are in and their own particular personalities and background. I run into this difference all the time.