3 Tips for Writing Content for Your Buyer Personas
If you’ve done the hard work to research and create several buyer personas, then you’ve laid a fantastic foundation for your content marketing. Many marketers think that having the personas is enough. They think that the content they create will naturally flow for each persona. And maybe it does. But putting on that persona hat and really thinking like your personas will help you create fabulousness that will draw prospects to your content like flies to honey.
1. Use the same basic idea in several different ways.
The truth is, if you have several different types of personas, you can create content that basically says the same thing but is delivered in three or four different ways.
“WHAT?” you might be saying right now. “I thought that all my content had to be crafted specifically for each persona!”
Well, that’s true. And not true all at the same time. (So incredibly helpful…yes, we know!)
For example, let’s say you’re marketing subscription-based software that helps small businesses do their accounting. One of your target personas is a one-woman army. She does it all. She started her business out of her house. She crafts each of her products herself. She is in charge. We’ll call her Daisy Does-It-All. Your other target persona is specifically an accountant. She’s a female but she really only handles the accounting function in her small business. We’ll call her Anna Accounting-Only. It’s tax season, so you want to write a blog about how your software makes that easier. You can create two pieces of content that say GENERALLY the same thing but are delivered in two different ways.
Daisy Does It All: Create an infographic that shows how subscription-based accounting software makes doing business easier.
Anna Accounting-Only: Create a printable tip sheet that shows how subscription-based accounting software makes tax season tolerable.
Each piece of content is conveying the main message that subscription-based accounting software makes life better. But they do it in different ways suitable to each persona. Simple, right?
2. Use the news.
One of the terrific (and easy) things you can do to create better marketing content is to use current events to connect to your personas. For example, if the US Department of Transportation just announced that they are doing major highway reconstruction all over the US and you’re marketing an audiobook subscription service, use the news! Write blogs about how listening to audiobooks in traffic lowers stress levels for one persona. Or create a podcast all about audiobooks and commuting for another. Create a top 100 audiobooks for the car list. Whatever it is you are marketing, utilize current events to connect with your buyer personas in a way that makes sense to them.
3. Always keep your persona in your head.
When I write content, I keep an image of my persona in my head and use it. I pretend that they are sitting right there, just waiting to read my delicious content that will rock their world. I imagine them laughing or even making a surprised “ah ha!” face because I’ve just made them consider something new. Because I want to please them, educate them, entertain them and enlighten them, I know I will do my best work by keeping them front and center.
Developing content is no easy task. Especially because it takes veritable mountains of content to truly move the needle in back-end data analysis. And because you want to create content that matters to your personas, it can be a bit overwhelming. But if you sit down every day and devote a bit of your time and a lot of your head space to connecting with your personas, you may find that it becomes easier.
Educate them. Entertain them. Enlighten them.
