Last night, we had another great conversation at #ContentCircus on Twitter, this time discussing How to Create Buyer Personas For Your Content Strategy. Let’s jump into some of the key takeaways:
So what is a buyer persona and why do they matter? A buyer persona is an abstract representation of your ideal customer. For your content, it helps you understand who you are creating content for #contentcircus
— Mack Collier (@MackCollier) February 3, 2021
You could start with asking your existing customers.
If you don't have any, imagine your ideal customer and write his/her bio.#ContentCircus
It's what I do when I'm developing marketing ideas for books. https://t.co/2Rn78CWvua
— Kathryn Lang – shenanstigator (@Kathrynclang) February 3, 2021
When you start creating buyer personas, you want to define who the persona is. For that, you need customer data. If you work for a business, your sales, marketing and customer service teams should be able to help you define your ideal customer. If you have a retail business, you and your employees that are in regular contact with your customers can give this information. If you are still uncertain who your ideal customer is, you can create a persona for who you would want this customer to be.
We are including 4 areas of information in our personas:
1 – Demographic
The second is the customer's pain points and worries. How would you find out what problems the customer is facing? #contentcircus
— Mack Collier (@MackCollier) February 3, 2021
Oooooo this sounds interesting! What are the three layers? #contentcircus https://t.co/Hd0237Ox1P
— Mack Collier (@MackCollier) February 3, 2021
Obvious problem
Level One, Surface Pain (feelings it causes)
Level Two, Deeper Pain (Ask, what's that doing to you?)
Level Three, Communal Pain (compounded by existing solutions)Source: @jonathanfields #ContentCircus
— Becky McCray (@BeckyMcCray) February 3, 2021
After collecting demographic data about your persona (age, gender, occupation, income, education), you want to move on to addressing the personas pain points. What are the issues and problems they face every day, that you can address via the content you create? Giving customers the solutions to their problems is a wonderful way to create content that drives sales, and loyalty.
Here's the areas of information your persona should include:
1 – Demographics
2 – Customer pain points and worriesThird is where they get their content from and what type of content they want (blogs, videos, podcasts, etc)#contentcircus
— Mack Collier (@MackCollier) February 3, 2021
Love these answers. I’d also ask your customers why they chose you instead of another company. That tells you a lot about what to emphasize. #ContentCircus https://t.co/5dPoh7Dy8q
— M.A. Chiappetta (@chippermuse) February 3, 2021
When creating content for your personas, you want to be aware of where the persona is currently getting information, and which sources it trusts. You also want to know what type of content they prefer. Do they want to read long blog posts on their desktop, or do they want to see short videos on their smartphone? By understanding what type of content they want and from what sources, it helps you tailor content to meet the expectations of your customers.
The four areas of information to include in your buyer persona:
1 – Demographic
2 – Customer pain points
3 – What sources of information they trust and content forms they preferFinally…where is your persona on the buyer's journey #contentcircus
— Mack Collier (@MackCollier) February 3, 2021
Also, think about who your persona is and if they are responsible for purchases or will they need someone else's permission? For instance, if your persona works for a company, do they have control of the budget to approve a purchase or must they get their boss to? #contentcircus
— Mack Collier (@MackCollier) February 3, 2021
Especially for government or nonprofit buyers, think about their purchasing and payment approval processes. Would one annual payment be easier than monthly? #ContentCircus
— Becky McCray (@BeckyMcCray) February 3, 2021
Finally, when you are creating your personas, you want to define where the persona is in the Buyer’s Journey. We discussed creating content for each stage of the Buyer’s Journey back in December at #ContentCircus, here’s the recap post for our conversation. Additionally, you want to define the persona’s role in making purchasing decisions within their organization or household. Can they authorize purchases independently, or will they need approval from their boss or spouse?
So that was our discussion last night at #ContentCircus of How to Create Buyer Personas For Your Content Strategy. If you want to join the next #ContentCircus, it happens every Tuesday night at 7pm Central. Just follow the #ContentCircus hashtag. Next week’s topic will be Winning Strategies For Content Creation on Twitter! See you then!
Bonus: I wrote about How to Create Buyer Personas For Your Content Marketing Strategy here yesterday. In that post I also added the persona for Sarah, to give you an idea of what a persona looks like so you can better understand how it can help your content creation efforts. Here it is again:
