When deciding to use content marketing in a company, it is undoubtedly important to be aware of who your message is aimed at - no matter whether it is content on social media fan pages or a professional company website.
Defining a persona allows you to match the shared materials directly to previously defined target groups.
Personas, or the archetype of your potential customer.
Increasing sales by using the strategy of building personas is possible because properly developed personas provide insight into customer behavior. What's more, they allow you to learn how they make decisions and their purchasing intentions.
So what is a persona?
Persona is nothing more than a description of a virtual character that reflects the personality of a potential customer or observer of your website. In short, it is a description of uzbekistan b2b leads representatives of individual target groups to whom your message is directed.
Persona combines both demographic and psychographic data, which is why it differs from brand archetypes - it is more detailed.
Persona is not only a description of personality, but also other factors that influence the purchasing process. Persona describes the deep needs of a potential customer, their priorities and aspirations. The more precisely you define the outline of a representative of the target group, the easier it will be to build lasting relationships with them and reach them through shared content.
When creating personas, everything that determines the ways in which services are used and all customer behaviors towards the product is important. They influence the motivations of users, and it is motivations that are the key to understanding the behavior of potential customers.
They are often more important than data such as age or gender.
Personas - what are they actually for?
Personas are used in almost every form of content marketing. They are very useful for people who directly decide on the type of content posted on the website.
It should be remembered that writing about things that in theory may appeal to everyone, in practice they may be considered completely useless - too general for people interested in the chosen topic, and at the same time incomprehensible to laymen. That is why it is worth defining the company's personas.
In content marketing, personas are used primarily in planning the content of the website and predicting the situations in which the user may use them.
Anyone who has already had contact with content marketing can guess that it is difficult to create something catchy without knowing what the audience may look like. You should ask yourself key questions - "for whom?" and "why?", and based on the answers, start building the topics of the posts.
What is a persona for?
What should a persona consist of?
When building a persona, it is not enough to know who follows you or “likes” you on Facebook. The components of a persona are much broader than just a name, gender and age. This characteristic does not refer to the person themselves, but also to their preferences and motivations.
The characteristics that define a persona can be divided into several categories:
General information - basic data about the person, such as age, gender, place of residence, education, profession, interests,
Role in a social group - e.g. in a family, this will include the scope of household duties, contribution to the budget, etc.,
Goals and challenges - the hierarchy of values, passion, life motto adopted by the persona,
Shopping preferences - traditional shopping, online shopping, card or cash payment, how much does a person spend on shopping at one time,
Financial situation - monthly earnings, savings, loans.
There are many other demographic and psychographic factors that can be taken into account when building a persona. These can include, for example, the persona's current life situation or the persona's problems that can be solved.
The role of persona in the purchasing process
Personas can play many roles in the purchasing process. Here are some roles you can assign to your prospects:
Initiator – suggests the idea of purchasing a product/service
Advisor – advises whether it is worth buying a product/service
Decision maker – influences decisions about purchasing a product/service
Buyer – purchases a product/service
User – uses the purchased product/service.
Note that you will rarely reach the highest management in the company. In this case, they are best influenced by initiators and advisors who create appropriate content tailored to their needs. Building a special marketing strategy for board members is unprofitable and does not bring any benefits.
