What is a marketing persona and why is it important to your content?

You may have heard marketers talking about personas or avatars and wondered what exactly they mean.

They’re talking about profiles of ideal clients drawn up by answering a series of questions and used to focus your marketing efforts.

Why do we use them?  There’s so much noise online, and having that focus allows us to target our messages to the people we most want to hear them. A marketing persona should be the basis of all content creation.

How to create a marketing persona

Ask these questions:

• Where does my ideal client live and work?
• How old are they and what is their gender?
• How much do they earn and how were they educated?
• What is their family like?
• What do they care about?
• What are their goals and values?
• Where do they get their news?
• What social media do they use – and when?
• What are their challenges and pain points?
• How do you answer their problems?
• What are their objections to a sale?
• What is their role in the buying process?

Answering all of them will give you a clear picture of the person you’re targeting with your content.

You’ll pull together a lot of information from your website and social media analytics and marketing demographics.

You’ll also understand what drives them and you’ll be able to answer any potential objections before they contact you.

It will also give you a clear picture of the social media they use, the times they use it, and what sort of content would interest them the most.

Young parents, for example, are likely to be on social media early in the morning and be interested in parenting tips or ideas for family days out. They may well use Instagram and Facebook as their main social media.

Business people in their 50s are likely to be on social media more in office hours or just afterwards, and their main social media is likely to be LinkedIn. They are likely to be interested in time-saving tips and ideas for how to grow their business.

It’s a good idea to give your persona a name which reflects the person targeted.

You may also want to repeat this process for one or two other key client groups.

How can the persona be used?

There are several ways you can use a persona in your content creation.

1. Use it to choose the right subjects for your blogs, social media posts, and lead generators.
2. Decide which keywords would be most effective.
3. Explore potential objections to your ideal clients buying your products or services – and answer them.
4. Create blog headlines which resonate with your ideal clients.
5. Decide which social media should be used to share your content and when your ideal clients are most likely to be active.

Do you need advice on creating a marketing persona for your business? Call us on 01443 571375 or get in touch here.