The TM Guide to Creating Personas for Marketing - Part 2

At the end of last week, we ran through what a marketing persona is and how you can get started. Today we’re here to show you how to go further and to truly understand why we think creating these marketing personas are so important.

Utilise Analytics

This is how you gather your main data. As fun as it would be to just make stuff up about Paul, Ianjit and Sofia, you need to use your real data if you want to get anywhere. You could start by looking at your website statistics, or even check the conversations that you’ve had with your real customers. When checking your website analytics, it becomes clear when people are dropping off and why, where they came from, how they found your website and how long they spent on each page. Further, you could create surveys and polls for your actual customers to build a really strong persona. After all, your customers are the ones you are creating personas about so they will be the ones who know themselves best! Ask them to vote on their goal, or what type of content they enjoy seeing.

Why Should You Create Personas?

You Make It Personal

We know we keep bringing this one up in most of the articles we write but that’s because we think it is just so important – it keeps things personal! Just like your audience don’t want to feel like they’re interacting with a robot, you also don’t want to feel like your audience is just a way of making sales. Creating personas helps remind businesses that these customers are real people with names, faces and needs who likely appreciate a personal tone.

It Boosts Your Content

By creating personas, you are better able to really understand your customers and, in turn, tailor your content to them. You can access their specific needs, wants and goals by honing in on their personalities. Personas allow you to access a wider picture to something you perhaps had not considered in such detail before, and we believe this personalisation truly reflects itself in content.

You Learn More

You can learn about what your customers like to spend their money on, and what they don’t. You can spend time looking into analytics that you had not considered before. You can talk to your audience more and learn about them to help influence your personas. At the end of the day, learning is a key part of any business and creating these personas.

Start small, and then work your way up to maybe even 10 personas, targeting various aspects of your business. Whilst you have a lot of fun creating them, you will also see that they can be incredibly useful for targeting your marketing and really getting to know your audience.