Personas are a great tool used in marketing and in user-centered design to help better vizualize your audience, understand their needs and behaviours and to effectively improve your results. In blogging, they can also be used to improve your content strategy and the quality of your articles. We have decided to list six reasons why you should define personas and how it translates to content marketing.
KNOW YOUR READERS
Instead of addressing a crowd, write as if you’re having a conversation with your favorite reader. If you’re not sure who that is, make up an imaginary friend.
– Kelly Kautz
By creating readers personas, you will be able to clearly identify your target audience. They will help you determine who are your readers and you will know their needs, their questions and the issues that are of most concern to them. Having a clear idea of who you are writing for will improve your content and the experience you offer. Personas are a way to really include the readers in your blogging, to bond with them and to create more interesting content for them.
CONNECT WITH YOUR READERS
In order to better understand your audience, you also have to know their preferences and their behaviours. Knowing all this, you are able to connect with your readership by hanging out on the same sites and by developing an interest in the same topics as them. This is a way to develop your audience and to reinforce the link between you and your readers because people like to read articles written by bloggers that they can relate to.
The next time you answer comments on your blog, don’t just leave a casual thank you. Instead, check out the commenter’s blog. Give some advice, compliment the commenter, or ask a question.
– Henneke
PERSONALIZE YOUR CONTENT
Developing your readers personas will help you humanize your readers and better understand them. More than just datas, they will become real individuals and having those individuals in mind while writing will help you decide the level of expertise to put in your articles, the vocabulary you need to employ and it will improve your content. It will remind you that you are writing for real people and it will give your content a more personal tone and strenghten your personal brand.
COMMUNICATE EFFECTIVELY WITH YOUR TEAM
When working with other writers on a project, you may have difficulties to agree on the content you want to publish. Personas will help you have the same idea of the content you have to produce to satisfy your audience. Developing personas and communicating with a common idea of who your readers are will help you develop coherent articles and communicate effectively with your team. Personas are an easy, clear and explicit communication tool which you will use with your team throughout the project.
IDENTIFY OPPORTUNITIES & INCREASE YOUR EXPOSURE
Thanks to personas, you will be able to see your product throuh your readers’ eyes. You will better understand their problems and the information they need. This knowledge can trigger new ideas for different contents or new topics that will be of more interest to your readers and that may also bring a new audience to your blog.
EARN MONEY THROUGH ADVERTISEMENT
Personas will help you know more informations about your readers like their likes, their needs, their spendings… Those details may help you choose more relevant advertisements or more profitable types of promotion. When presenting your blogging project to professionals like recruiting advertisers, you will also be able to give useful informations about your audience and show them that you know your audience.
