The Importance of Buyer Personas in Online Marketing

Buyer Personas Augment Your Marketing Team

-A Buyer Persona is an imaginary individual who embodies the traits of your target audience. They may not be flesh and blood, but they help you flesh out your Prospects with a face, a personality and a name. In essence, they become a working partner, helping you attract and nurture Leads and strengthen relationships with existing Customers.

Creating a Buyer Persona is the essential first step in the 4?P?s??of content marketing development. You can:

Gain insight into your prospect?s motivation — the ?why? behind their buying decisions ? to ?create marketing messages that clearly explain how your company and products will help them solve their problems or make their life better.
Gain insight into how they search for information before making a purchase. Most everyone searches online now, but understanding where and when your Prospects are looking will help you zero in on the delivery platforms they?re using.
Gain insight into their format preferences, too. If your Buyer Persona is a visual learner, they?ll love your short videos or photos. If they?re a reader at heart, they?ll be interested in your blog, ebooks and whitepapers. If they?re a listener, they?ll be excited to sign up for your webinars or podcasts.

Who are your Personas? What connects them to your brand?

Successful Inbound Marketing requires a holistic approach. But your target audience is actually a series of different sub-audiences, and each of those buyer types is different. You?ll want to create a Buyer Persona for each key segment, because focusing on their individual differences will increase Conversions.

You can create Killer Content?that?s exactly what each persona is looking for.

Bringing Your Buyer Persona to Life

How many personas you need depends on your range of products or services. How detailed you choose to make each Buyer Persona is up to you, but the more ?life? you give them, the more valuable they?ll be to you in your quest to produce and deliver the most attractive content. You can conduct an exhaustive interview process, but there are simpler ways to develop effective personas.

Use existing customer data and your website analytics to identify key demographics and behaviors for each Buyer Persona.

Get your entire staff ? or a good cross-section if you have lots of employees ? involved in this process, because each department has a different type of interaction with Prospects and Customers and can provide unique perspective regarding each persona?s desires and concerns.

Consider:

Their goals, both personal and work-related. What?s in it for them if they buy from you?
How your products make them more efficient, more effective or happier. Are your products critically important to them, or optional?
How they perceive your company compared to your competitors.
Their buying stage. If you?re working to Attract them, that?s different than if they?re on the verge of buying or they?re a repeat customer.
Where they search online and what social media networks they use.
How they ?consume? content.
Are they the final decision maker? An influencer? Who influences them?

Your Buyer Persona Is Like an Expert Consultant

Use your personas to guide you as you strategize. As you create your Content Strategy, your Calls to Action and other Conversion Strategy elements, ask yourself: What would Suzy Prospect do? How will she benefit from this content? How will it make her feel? How will she respond?

The fundamental value of online marketing is that you can engage in Conversations with Prospects. Creating a Buyer Persona for each of your target audiences helps you do that in more meaningful ways, and that?s what Leads to Conversions.

Marketing Matters Inbound?is an inbound marketing firm specializing in online conversions, content?strategy, call-to-action mapping and traditional media placement. Our experience in?B2B digital?marketing?and traditional media allows us to deliver results through a strategic media mix. We believe in?aligning and merging marketing and sales/operations for optimal return on your marketing investment.