Today’s is the sixth and final post in our series about buyer personas. (If you missed the last five posts, read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4 and Part 5 here.) Today we’ll talk about making your persona real so that everyone on your team knows who they are talking to.
Make it Real
It’s important to remember that your persona is not a real person, but a composite archetype of your ideal customer. The point of making the persona real is so that any person in your company who interacts with customers or prospects learns and can use (authentically, of course) what they know makes your customers tick.
There are any number of ways to make your persona real; How you do this will depend on who on your team interacts with them and how. Here’s how we do it:
- Tell your persona’s story. This gets you and your team emotionally involved, so you can be “real” with your prospects. Pay particular attention to areas of your persona’s “life” that affect your marketing message.
- Keep it fictional but realistic. Your customers have idiosyncrasies, but your persona doesn’t. Focus on common values and concerns your persona might have so that you can address them in marketing.
- Condense the information about them into the essence of what you and your team need to know to make the sale. They might like to walk their dog every morning, but unless you’re a dog groomer, vet or pet spa, it probably doesn’t impact how you market your product or service to them.
- Use photos, drawings or cartoons to illustrate behaviors and characteristics.
- Draw up your persona — literally. Use our template or your own ideas to make a poster that describes them, even if it’s on letter-sized paper. Post it throughout your place of business (though not necessarily in view of customers). Tell your persona’s story on it, and include photos and bullet points that describe them. This makes the persona real to everyone and visually keeps them in front of mind when interacting with real customers.
Put that Persona to Work for You!
Now that you’ve developed one or more personas, it’s time to make use of all that you’ve learned. Your personas will never complain about long hours or difficult tasks. In fact, their only purpose is to assist you in any way possible. Use them to craft targeted messages in everything from advertising to white papers. You’ll be pleasantly surprised at how much more effective your marketing can be when you tailor it to the needs of your buyer persona, the embodiment of your ideal customer.
It’s a lot of work, isn’t it, developing personas? If you’re having trouble with them, or just want to know more about developing buyer personas or any other aspect of inbound marketing, let us know — we’re here to provide what you need.
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