Set it and forget it– If only marketing were as simple as using a BBQ oven. Surprisingly, some marketers follow that principle. You’ve seen it before:
- Publish one blog post and forget about it
- Create an infographic and forget about it
- Automate an Ebook lead magnet and forget about it
What’s worse?
- Build the buyer persona and forget about it.
No kidding!
In a survey of 137 marketing executives, Cintell found that, as well as creating them, maintaining buyer personas prevents marketers from using personas effectively. That includes refreshing and updating the persona docs.
One of the reasons for that is this:
Getting the organization to value personas is a problem.
Shut your eyes. Pick a rock. Throw it into LinkedIn.
You’d hit three marketers who think personas are worthless before hitting one who doesn’t. For them:
- “Personas are too costly.”
- “It’s just a fictional representation- don’t take it too seriously.”
- “It takes so much time to build. Time we can use more productively.”
- “It is irrelevant for startups with a small number of customers.”
Those are some reasons marketing teams cannot agree on the value of building and maintaining buyer personas.
That’s one of the reasons why companies that miss leads and revenue targets cannot list primary personas and key attributes about them. In fact, only 28.6% of Cintell’s survey respondents could confidently report that at least half of their organization could name their persona and key attributes.
In a world:
- where buyers are more empowered with data and efficient Do-Your-Own-Research processes;
- where the buying committee grows yearly (G2 Buyer Behaviour Report).
- 53% of buyers research alternative products within the first six months (G2 Buyer Behavior report).
- Where personalized messaging is no longer a nice-to-have;
One thing is sure:
The company that understands its buyers (or buying committee) best wins.
Making your buyer persona a living artifact by putting your customer’s data at the forefront of everyone’s mind is one way to win.
Here Are 6 Creative Ways To Keep Your Buyer Personas Fresh And Alive.
1. Onboard remote content creators with buyer intelligence
Every organization’s strategic plans contain goals that cannot be met without people. However, remote freelance content writers are often considered external assets in content marketing.
- furnished with limited brand information,
- a detailed content brief with slim buyer information,
Typically, remote writers produce the first draft, which the content strategist and editor rework to fit the brand’s taste.
The problem with this tactic is that the buyer intelligence is limited to a few people internally, making it difficult to document and institutionalize that knowledge within the organization.
Familiarizing remote content writers with sufficient buyer intelligence will make the buyer persona more memorable.
The approach will also save time and empower the marketing team with diverse insights about the buyer. Here are some techniques to achieve this:
- Provide comprehensive content briefs when onboarding remote freelance content writers. Aside from the article title, word count, and tone of voice, your content briefs should also cover target audience demographic information, pain points, challenges, needs, and other relevant insights.
- Share relevant company information, such as mission statements, values, and company culture, that can help writers align their content with the company’s messaging and tone of voice.
- Conduct buyer persona training to ensure remote freelance content writers deeply understand the target audience and buyer persona. You can
- Invite them to your webinars
- Share sign-up demos or sales videos
- Create one-on-one sessions with subject matter experts.
Companies that exceed leads and meet goals use a buyer persona across the organization in training and messaging.
2. Incorporate buyer persona into office space and receive feedback
Source: CXL
Creating posters that outline the target audience’s key characteristics and pain points can help employees keep the buyer persona in mind. These posters can be displayed in common office areas or individual workspaces.
One crucial advantage of this technique is that it helps everyone agree on a shared language when referring to the persona. Consider how an IT Leader is different from an Analytics Executive. But since they are both likely to buy a Data Analysis tool or at least be a part of the buying committee, marketers can address them as the same persona.
Incorporating personas into the workspace can limit the chances of that error because the correct terms and insights related to each persona are on everyone’s mind.
3. Turn personas into a live/interactive digital asset
Most personas never see the daylight because they live in cold storage like office desks, gated PowerPoint decks, and PDFs. It’s challenging to keep personal characteristics on everyone’s mind that way.
Instead, use them interactively by making them a dynamic digital asset. For example, Trifacta (Alteryx), a data analytics software company, uses featured images of real/actual customers across its website– not stock images.
- You can use them as page headers in your knowledge management platforms.
Seeing the real people behind the persona, your team will grow more empathy and better interpret your customers’ needs and preferences. That’s because you’re now showing real people with stories and experiences– sometimes stories your team has experienced, too.
4. Use persona data in Generative AI prompts
Generative AI is becoming a mainstay in marketing, and you can be sure of one fact: Companies leveraging AI will be more efficient in various ways. Automating marketing tasks such as creating content briefs, blog post drafts, and keyword research is only one of a few ways to leverage the power of AI.
However, it is essential not to forget to match AI power with customer intelligence for optimum effect. When we hear that a technology leverages 175 billion parameters, it’s easy to assume it must have the perfect answer.
You can draw data from your buyer persona, customer case studies, and sources of raw data, then use that information to prompt AI tools to create assets that address common pain points and provide solutions tailored to the persona’s specific needs.
That way, you ensure that persona intelligence is leveraged even in minute tasks, ultimately keeping the persona at the top of the mind.
5. Create a bite-sized version for specific team projects
Instead of sending a 52-page PDF to your content writer or social media manager, consider sharing a bite-sized version specific to their tasks.
Demographic information, purchase history, and other technical details about the persona might be relevant for a marketing director or product manager. Still, a content writer may not need this information to write content that speaks to the persona’s pain points.
Equally, your social media may only need information about the persona’s preferred social media platforms, preferred tone of voice, and select types of content.
Creating a bite-sized persona doc should help your content creators:
- Keep important persona insights at the top of mind
- avoid the generalities
- establish a more specific and targeted connection between the persona and your products
- Create content that resonates with the persona’s particular needs and interests.
The more specific you get, the more you become precise in your messaging, and you can expect to see greater engagement and payoff from your content efforts.
6. Keep it up-to-date
Companies that exceed their lead and revenue goals are 7x more likely to update their personas within the last six months. Most marketing teams don’t do it because it’s time-consuming and expensive. But it doesn’t have to be.
You can update a persona by collecting more data to support existing insight. Aside from interviewing new customers, you can also look at external studies, talk to salespeople, and review CRM/MA data.
You also want to expand the demographic and psychographic data beyond one specific persona’s job titles and other segmentations. For example, consider the type of people sitting on the buying committee, their role in the buying process, their association, and their personality traits.
Since many content teams don’t account for the entire buying committee, there is a competitive advantage in doing this.
So, don’t just set it and forget it – make your buyer persona a marketing asset that stays on everyone’s mind.
From incorporating buyer intelligence into your office space to using authentic images and stories in AI prompt engineering, there are numerous ways to make your buyer persona a memorable and effective tool.