Blog Marketing Techniques: How to Choose a Topic for Your Post
So, you've started your blog. You've set up your template, you've picked out your font, and now you're staring at a blank screen. What are you...
4 min read
Kevin Page
:
June 23, 2017
I see it all the time. Whether it’s a new HubSpot portal, a PDF document, or just in conversation, there seems to be one, universally dangerous tactic that keeps marketers from having successful and useful buyer personas.
Now before I tell you what the one thing is, let’s just make sure we are all on the same page.
Buyer personas are meant to be fictional representations or cross-sections of your ideal potential buyers — a tool to identify and visualize your target audience.
When done correctly, they can help you better understand what drives a customer purchase, how to communicate with them in the consideration process, and what barriers they might have along the way.
Creating buyer personas doesn’t mean that you have a magical organization system that every potential lead, prospect or customer will fit in without exception. Defining personas will never compare to a real sales person asking real questions to identify what a company needs, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t important.
It’s going to seem simple, but don’t be fooled. The one dangerous mistake I’ve seen numerous companies make is creating too many buyer personas. If you miss the mark on this, you might as well not create personas at all. You can’t have a target audience if the target is all of the rings on the bulls eye.
I know your next question is going to be, “How many is too many?” And that answer is not black and white. Most companies who have really successful personas limit themselves to 3-5, but there are some key ways that you can identify if you’ve crossed the threshold.
If you are one of the many businesses that don’t have working personas, it’s time to let go of your preconceived ideas about how to craft stellar buyer personas and keep these few tips and tricks in mind.
Start by getting all of your key players in the room: upper management, marketing, and sales. Each of these departments will bring a slightly different understanding of your ideal customers. Try to balance the future vision of the company with what is working well for sales today.
Now it’s time to take your creation into the wild. Use your newly developed personas as a guideline to help you better communicate with your customers and prospects online. If you are a HubSpot user, make sure to use the personas tool to manage your personas and collect more data from your lead submissions.
If you haven’t developed your personas yet, be sure to download this persona template to help you get started.
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