Demand generation teams are under constant pressure to bring in leads – but not just any leads. The goal is to attract prospects who are genuinely interested, problem-aware, and likely to convert. That’s easier said than done, especially in crowded B2B markets where potential buyers are bombarded with messaging that all sounds the same.

One reason this happens is because many campaigns are centered around who the buyer is – their title, industry, or company size. That data is helpful on the surface, but it doesn't always reveal what someone’s actually trying to accomplish. This is where the Jobs To Be Done framework comes in.

Understanding the 'Job' Behind Every B2B Decision

At its essence, JTBD asks a simple but powerful question: What is the buyer trying to get done, and why? In B2B settings, these jobs often relate to improving efficiency, reducing costs, hitting metrics, or solving frustrating bottlenecks.

For example, a marketing operations lead at a SaaS company isn’t just looking for a reporting tool – their real job might be "to provide reliable data that improves cross-team decision-making." When demand gen content aligns with that specific goal, it becomes far more compelling.

Applying JTBD to Demand Gen Campaigns

Here’s how demand generation teams can start using JTBD in their lead generation strategies:

• Interview existing customers: Uncover what triggered their search for a solution and why they chose yours. What job were they hiring your solution to do?
• Map typical JTBD patterns across verticals: Buyers in the same role may have different 'jobs' depending on company stage or business model. Understanding these nuances sharpens targeting.
• Create content tied to specific 'jobs': Instead of writing for a general title like “IT director,” write for the job of “enabling seamless remote access across teams.” Align landing pages, emails, and ad copy to that job.
• Refine qualification criteria: Use JTBD language in forms and sales outreach to assess job alignment early on, helping filter for stronger-fit leads.

JTBD Helps You 'Speak the Buyer’s Language'

When you understand the job your potential buyers are trying to complete, your messaging becomes less about your product features and more about the outcomes they care about. This not only improves targeting and engagement but also fosters stronger alignment with sales – since conversations start from a shared understanding of the customer's motivation.

Ultimately, incorporating JTBD into your B2B demand gen strategy helps you attract leads who are not only relevant, but also primed for conversion – because you’ve met them where they are, with content that reflects what they truly need.

For years, traditional buyer personas have been a go-to resource for B2B marketing teams. These profiles often include attributes like industry, job title, company size, seniority level, and maybe a few behavioral traits. While this information can be helpful, it’s often insufficient for building targeted campaigns that resonate deeply with buyers.

The main shortcoming? Personas tell you who the buyer is, not why they’re seeking a solution or what they aim to achieve by doing so. This is where the Jobs To Be Done (JTBD) framework offers a more actionable layer of customer insight.

What Traditional Personas Overlook

Here’s why relying solely on demographic-driven personas may lead to missed opportunities:

• They assume intention based on role: Just because someone is a CFO doesn’t mean they’re motivated by the same goals as every other CFO.
• They generalize behavior: Personas often miss the context behind a buyer’s decision-making process – such as internal pressure or external changes.
• They don’t evolve dynamically: Personas are often created annually and updated infrequently, making them slow to reflect real-time shifts in buyer needs or motivations.

The result? Campaigns built around static personas often feel generic or off the mark – especially in B2B environments where decision-making is complex and nuanced.

How JTBD Bridges the Gap

Instead of focusing on static traits, JTBD focuses on context and purpose. It asks, What progress is the buyer trying to make? This subtle shift leads to a much richer understanding of your target audience.

For example, a VP of Procurement at a healthcare company may be evaluating solutions not because they fit a demographic profile, but because they need “to streamline vendor evaluation in order to meet compliance regulations.” That’s a defined job with clear stakes – and JTBD helps you speak directly to it.

Bringing JTBD into Targeting and Messaging

When you embed JTBD insights into your marketing research, content strategy, and ad targeting, you start building campaigns that address more than surface-level traits. You uncover the deeper objectives and pain points driving decisions. That insight leads to messaging that connects faster and more often.

JTBD doesn’t replace personas entirely – it enhances them. Rather than building a persona labeled “Operations Manager at Mid-Sized Tech Company,” you expand it to reflect the job they’re hiring your product to do, whether that’s “reduce email bottlenecks in project updates” or “gain real-time insight into team productivity.”

Real Benefits for B2B Growth

By focusing on the actual jobs your audience needs to accomplish, demand gen teams can: - Better segment audience groups based on motivations, not just roles - Create content and offers that solve specific problems - Improve campaign ROI by generating more relevant, high-intent traffic

The result is smarter targeting, clearer messaging, and more meaningful engagement – all keys to boosting B2B growth and lead generation effectiveness. When paired with robust marketing research, JTBD becomes a proactive tool for understanding buyers as people with goals, not just as titles on a spreadsheet.

One of the biggest challenges in B2B marketing is crafting messages that truly connect. Often, businesses focus on job titles, industries, or company size as targeting criteria. But those markers rarely reveal what truly drives a buyer's behavior. That’s where the Jobs To Be Done (JTBD) framework stands out. By centering messages around the "job" your customers are trying to accomplish—not just who they are—you can create stronger message-market fit and generate more qualified leads.

What is message-market fit?

Message-market fit occurs when the way you talk about your solution aligns perfectly with the problems and goals of your target audience. It means your messaging speaks directly to the struggle your buyer is facing and how your service helps them overcome it.

Using the JTBD framework, demand generation teams can move beyond vague positioning and write copy that resonates. Instead of starting with “what we offer,” you begin with “what they need to get done.”

Speak to the real problem, not the persona

Consider a marketing operations manager seeking analytics tools. Their "job" isn’t just “buy reporting software.” It could be something deeper, like “prove marketing ROI to leadership to secure next year’s budget.” If your message only highlights features, you risk missing that emotional and functional driver.

JTBD helps uncover:

• The functional job: What are they trying to accomplish?
• The emotional job: How do they want to feel?
• The social job: How do they want to be perceived?

Crafting messages that reflect customer motivation

By aligning your lead generation messaging with these jobs, your campaigns become much more relevant and compelling. Consider this example:

Instead of: “Automated analytics dashboards for marketers”
Try: “Finally prove your marketing impact—without hours of manual reporting”

That second line speaks more directly to the job the customer is hiring the product to do. It shows understanding—not just of the role—but of the struggle behind it.

Implementing this approach helps drive quality traffic, not just traffic. If your audience feels like you “get” them, they’re far more likely to convert.

To apply the jobs to be done framework for marketers, you’ll first need to gather the right insights. JTBD research isn't just about surveys or web metrics—it’s about understanding context, behavior, and motivation. In the B2B space, this often requires deeper inquiry and thoughtful qualitative research.

Start with buyer conversations, not assumptions

The best way to uncover customer jobs is to talk directly to your prospects and customers. Whether through structured interviews or field research, ask open-ended questions that explore not just their needs, but their pain points, anxieties, and current workarounds.

Conducting effective JTBD interviews

Use these research tips to guide the process:

• Find recent buyers: Focus interviews on people who recently evaluated or purchased a solution like yours. Their memory of the decision journey will be fresh.
• Explore the timeline: Ask for a step-by-step recounting of what triggered their search, how they evaluated their options, and what made them choose (or not choose) a solution.
• Look for hiring criteria: Identify the progress they hoped to make—the “job” they were hiring your solution to do.
• Probe emotions and context: What frustrations were they navigating? What outcomes would make them feel successful?

If needed, a partner like SIVO Insights can help design and execute in-depth B2B buyer research using jobs to be done to ensure findings are structured and actionable.

Translate your insights into marketing research outputs

Once collected, JTBD insights can be turned into marketing assets, including:

• Buyer journey maps based on job progress
• Value propositions crafted around specific customer jobs
• Ad copy and landing pages that mirror buyer language and motivations
• Segmentation and targeting strategies based on observed jobs, not just personas

Ultimately, this type of customer insight leads to more effective demand generation because it reflects how real buyers think, decide, and act—not how we assume they do.