You’ve probably heard the term ‘personas’ before, but what exactly does this mean and why is it important?
What is a persona?
Buyer personas refer to a fictional character that is created to represent a realistic representation of someone who might be interested in your brand, products, services, or website. Creating this persona helps brands get a better understanding of how they can meet their customers’ needs. This means that you can create content that your audience really cares about.
While your buyer personas can differ based on depending on the type of content you create, this can help guide how you create your content based on your specific persona’s needs.
How do you create personas?
You can start creating your persona through a series of questions and answers.
For instance:
What industry do they work in? What’s their title?
Who do they report to?
What are their hobbies outside of work?
Who influences your persona?
What is their favorite social media platform?
How many children do they have?
What is their preferred method of communication?
You could go on and on depending on your goal, as these are just a few examples. The point is: The more you research the answers to your questions, and the most detailed your questions are, the higher quality your personas will be. Once you’ve put together the answers to your questions, you can begin to build your persona. Think about this as if you were building a character for a movie. For example, a budget-conscious male in his twenties, who works in marketing, lives in an apartment in New York and is active on Instagram. The more you can nail down the details, the better you are able to fit their needs.
It’s also helpful to create negative personas, which are the opposite of your buyer personas. This represents a group of people that you don’t want to reach, such as someone who wouldn’t be interested in your products or services. The better understanding you have of who your audience is and isn’t, the more likely you can create effective content.
How does this relate to native advertising?
When it comes to native advertising, personas can help you determine the type of content your audience will most-likely engage with while eliminating a lot of the guesswork. For instance, you can figure out what types of online publications your personas read the most and what topics they will most likely engage with. Do they prefer long-form blog posts or would they rather watch a quick video? Personas can help you determine these factors. Native advertising is all about reaching your ideal audience, and personas can help you pave the way for content ideas that would otherwise be difficult to pinpoint.
