Are you creating content based on your buyer persona?

Added 04.06.13
by SUKHBIR

One of the biggest issues faced by small businesses is not knowing who they are trying to attract with their content and marketing messages. Instead, they try to appeal to everyone on the proviso that they don't want to leave potential customers out. Unfortunately, this leads to mixed messages and confusion, which aren't overly conducive to a successful business. To counteract this, you need to understand your buyer persona and craft messages that appeal to them.

Buyer Personas

What is 'buyer persona'?
Basically, it is a representation of your ideal customer and provides you with a detailed outline of a typical buyer. This outline should cover their gender, age, family and marital status, job description, daily activities, financial situation, education, geography, hobbies, habits, how they use the internet, their challenges, their goals and their most pressing needs. The more that you know about them, the easier it will be to focus your efforts.

What do you do now?
Once you have developed a buyer persona for those individuals who are likely to purchase your product or service, you will find it much easier to create content that attracts and resonates with these people. You should be able to determine the kind of content that you need and the format it should take, how you can solve the individuals pain points, the tone and style of the content, the topics that you should focus on and content that will produce a desired reaction.

Why are 'buyer personas' important?
Buyer personas are vital for your business if you want to understand who you are trying to sell to, what their pain points are and how your product or service can meet their needs. Trying to appeal to everyone means that many of these points are overlooked and your message instead becomes a mish-mash of content that doesn't really resonate with anyone. Buyer personas also help you to provide value to your ideal customer.

It is also important to note that your buyer persona doesn't have to remain the same – it can change with your marketing strategy. Many businesses also have more than one ideal customer – a fast food outlet, for example, may be selling to children who want food that tastes good and parents who want a quick meal solution. The content used to appeal to each of these customers will be vastly different to each other.