RULE 4:
Use personas

RULE #4

Create and use personas to guide your creation

Clear personas help you keep the interests of your audience at the heart of everything you create.

Have you ever been told to explain something as if you were talking to your mum? Then you've used a persona.

Personas help us to determine the topics we should be talking about, the language we use and how we best make our case. They can also help us decide whether to create a blog post series, a white paper or a video.

About 3 in 4

of the most successful content marketers use personas for content marketing purposes, twice that of lesser performing marketers.

CMI, 2019

of the most successful content marketers use personas for content marketing purposes, twice that of lesser performing marketers.

CMI, 2019

How to research your personas

Creating robust personas requires a mixture of research and an iterative approach. The best starting point for B2B marketers is to speak to your sales teams. They often have the best understanding of decisions makers within a business and the challenges and priorities the different roles tend to have.

Speak to your account managers too. They will typically have complementary insight and can help to arrange interviews with customers so you can learn straight from the horse's mouth.

Further insight can be gleaned from keyword research, literature reviews and primary research such as quantitative surveys.

Every time you're preparing to create new content, ask:

What level of knowledge do they already have on the topic?
Which of their particular pain points are you addressing?
Which channels are they active on?
When and where do they spend their time looking at content from brands?
What do you want them, specifically, to do with the content?

Answering these kinds of question will help you determine the most appropriate subject and format.