How to Use Personas in Marketing Strategies

OK, so you’ve got your buyer person narrowed down. You know exactly who to aim your product or service to, you know where their challenges are – you know them inside and outside.

So now what? Getting the information is only part of the battle. Now it’s time to do something with that information. After all, you don’t want all that good “stuff” to go to waste. Here’s how you can use that persona in your marketing campaign.

First step: Plot out your course. Create a ladder of your buy personas before you create any content. This way, you can divvy up how much attention will go to each persona. Then you can alter your approach, strategy and content.

Depending on the personas you get, you will know exactly where to take your digital marketing. Think about what content the persona is more likely to be involved with – and which they’d pass over. If your aim is targeted at B2C readers, you will want to stick with blogs and videos. On the flipside, if your aim is at B2B readers, whitepapers and case studies are the way to go. No matter what kind of persona you end up with, apply the same logic. Take notice of each personas core content strategy. Then distribute the content according to each one.

Distribution is another place personas’ play a hand in. Every persona demands a different level of attention – so don’t expect to devote an equal level for each one. Let’s say you have a blog. Well, with B2B marketing, odds are a CEO or executive isn’t going to read your blog every single day – but a lower-level employee likely will. Why? Because that person craves knowledge to move up in the ranks. This means you want to aim a larger amount of your content to the lower-level employee – since he or she will be more involved – while still sprinkling some CEO/executive-level content in there.

Another way to use the persona in your marketing – answering the common questions for your buyers might have. By now, you likely know a few common questions, concerns or areas your buyers have. Start incorporating these questions – and their solutions – into everything from your blog and social media posts to videos and other graphics. You can also transform them into bigger projects, like case studies, webinars and even white papers.

And finally, another area a lot of companies forget – sharing with their team. If you share your finished products or even just the buyer persona with your team, you’ll find everyone is on the same page. Share it with any sales people, anyone in customer service or account management. Not only does this help them, but it can fill in any gaps you missed along the way, too.

Obviously, there are a lot of different pieces to the puzzle when it comes to making good use of personas in marketing. One simple way to handle it – sign up for a subscription with Breakthrough. Not only do we help you build your personal personas, but you'll have access to a team of knowledgeable experts to put the findings to good use in your marketing and sales strategies. Register today!

OK, so you’ve got your buyer person narrowed down. You know exactly who to aim your product or service to, you know where their challenges are – you know them inside and outside.

So now what? Getting the information is only part of the battle. Now it’s time to do something with that information. After all, you don’t want all that good “stuff” to go to waste. Here’s how you can use that persona in your marketing campaign.

First step: Plot out your course. Create a ladder of your buy personas before you create any content. This way, you can divvy up how much attention will go to each persona. Then you can alter your approach, strategy and content.

Depending on the personas you get, you will know exactly where to take your digital marketing. Think about what content the persona is more likely to be involved with – and which they’d pass over. If your aim is targeted at B2C readers, you will want to stick with blogs and videos. On the flipside, if your aim is at B2B readers, whitepapers and case studies are the way to go. No matter what kind of persona you end up with, apply the same logic. Take notice of each personas core content strategy. Then distribute the content according to each one.

Distribution is another place personas’ play a hand in. Every persona demands a different level of attention – so don’t expect to devote an equal level for each one. Let’s say you have a blog. Well, with B2B marketing, odds are a CEO or executive isn’t going to read your blog every single day – but a lower-level employee likely will. Why? Because that person craves knowledge to move up in the ranks. This means you want to aim a larger amount of your content to the lower-level employee – since he or she will be more involved – while still sprinkling some CEO/executive-level content in there.

Another way to use the persona in your marketing – answering the common questions for your buyers might have. By now, you likely know a few common questions, concerns or areas your buyers have. Start incorporating these questions – and their solutions – into everything from your blog and social media posts to videos and other graphics. You can also transform them into bigger projects, like case studies, webinars and even white papers.

And finally, another area a lot of companies forget – sharing with their team. If you share your finished products or even just the buyer persona with your team, you’ll find everyone is on the same page. Share it with any sales people, anyone in customer service or account management. Not only does this help them, but it can fill in any gaps you missed along the way, too.

Obviously, there are a lot of different pieces to the puzzle when it comes to making good use of personas in marketing. One simple way to handle it – sign up for a subscription with Breakthrough. Not only do we help you build your personal personas, but you'll have access to a team of knowledgeable experts to put the findings to good use in your marketing and sales strategies. Register today!