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The Importance of Developing Marketing Personas

The Importance of Developing Marketing Personas

What if you could make your website 2-5 times more effective and easier for your customers to use? When you start with marketing personas, you can accomplish just that.

When it comes to successful marketing, personalization is key. Customers want to know that you care about their needs and issues. They want to see material that directly addresses their pain points. It is impossible for marketers to successfully do this, however, unless they know precisely who they want to speak to.

Marketing personas, also called buyer personas, are representations of your ideal target customers. They are categories of about 3-5 types of people the brand will target with the marketing messaging. Personas provide valuable insight into areas such as the budget, position, demographics, and pain points experienced by a particular prospect.

Once you have these personas outlined, you can then create content designed especially for this type of person. Ninety percent of companies who create personas have a clearer idea of who their customers are and 71 percent of brands who exceed their revenue and lead goals have documented personas. Creating these personas, therefore, can help you drive your business forward.

Buyer Personas

Why are buyer personas so important?

Customers today want to know that brands care about their individual needs and pain points. They have the freedom to choose from a wide variety of companies, and so the brands that stand out and encourage purchases are the ones who speak specifically to the customer and demonstrate how they can help solve their unique problem. Using buyer personas builds trust because they help brands build relationships.

How do brands develop their buyer personas?

There are two main steps in the creation of each marketing persona. The first is examining past customers. Look at what they had in common and the pain points they often wanted to solve. Look to group these customers in 3-5 main categories, which will become the buyer personas. Examine what made them choose you over your competitors, how they found you, what they ended up purchasing, and even their roles within their organization. You can then piece this information together to start getting a clear picture of who you want to speak with.

The second step will be to combine this information with what you can learn through market research. Look at holes and pain points in your industry and what people are likely to be looking for from your brand.

How do brands use a marketing persona?

Once the personas have been developed, brands can then tailor their content creation process to better meet the needs of these prospects. Armed with insight into the pain points these prospects want to solve, brands will have a better idea of the types of content and topics that prospective customers will look for online. This will guide the creation of a full range of content, including landing pages and other online content, direct mail, and email. Email campaigns, for example, that have been organized around a particular marketing persona see click through rates improve by as much as 14 percent, with conversion rates receiving a 10 percent boost.

The power of buyer personas in modern marketing

The buyer persona empowers brands to create more personalized content that speaks directly to the needs of the target audience. Organizations should remember the following points:

  • Examine past customers to uncover patterns in the people who end up choosing your brand over competitors
  • Combine this insight with information from market research to better understand those most interested in your industry
  • Aim to create 3-5 buyer personas. If you do not have this many, try to make your categories more specific. If there are too many, see which ones might be combined
  • Create content that speaks directly to the needs of a particular persona, encouraging them through the sales funnel

Buyer personas can make an enormous amount of difference for brands who want to do a better job of targeting customers accurately. When you are ready to take your marketing efforts to the next level, reach out the professionals at Ballantine. With decades of experience, we are here to help lead you to success.

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I'm the Director of Digital Services and Partner at Ballantine, a family-owned and operated direct mail & digital marketing company based in New Jersey. and started in 1966 by my great uncle!