Estimated reading time: 3 minutes

A strong Inbound Marketing strategy starts with your customers, not your brand. And the content you create within that inbound marketing strategy needs to start with your customers also.

You can try to create content that stands out and draws an audience all on its own – or you can get to know your customers really, really well. We suggest the latter. It’s a lot easier.

So just how do you do that? Through inbound marketing (or customer) personas.

Inbound Marketing Personas are fictional characters that encompass the different needs, goals, and observed behavior patterns among your real and potential customers. Essentially, you take the common denominators shared by your customer type(s) and create a personality around that.

When creating a customer persona, put yourself in the shoes of your typical customer. Determine your persona’s role (or job title in the industries you target), goals, challenges, company, and more. Don’t be surprised if you discover that two or more distinct personas emerge.

For a lot of our clients, this practice can initially feel like a bit of a stretch. It takes digging into your clients or customers’ mindsets in ways that maybe you haven’t done before. And that’s exactly what we want. You will understand your customers better in this process, and so will whichever marketing agency you are working with.

Example questions to ask when creating Personas:

Role

Think about: How does your company or product come into play? At what point will they need you or your product in their role?

• What is a typical day?
• What knowledge and tools do they use?
• Who do they report to? Who reports to them?
• What industry or industries does their company work in?
• What is the size of their company?

Goals

Think about: What role can your company or product play in their success?

• What are they responsible for?
• What does it mean to be successful in their role?

Challenges

Think about: How can your company or product help them overcome these challenges?

• What are their biggest challenges?
• How do they overcome these challenges?

Personal background

Think about: Any emerging trends here that begin to shape your specific personas and target audience. This helps you narrow in on exactly who you want to be speaking to in your messaging.

• Age
• Family (single, married, children)
• Education
• What publications or blogs do they read?
• What associations and social networks do they belong to?

Shopping preferences

Think about: Where does your messaging need to be to reach them, share valuable content with them and build relationship?

• How do they prefer to interact with vendors (email, phone, in person)?
• Do they use the internet to research vendors or products? If yes, what types of websites do they use? What information is helpful to them?

Once you define your primary inbound marketing personas, you can use them to direct your content. Write content that would draw those specific personas and keep them coming back. That strategy ensures the right customers will find your content and once they do, they will keep coming back for more.

Inbound Marketing works – but just like every marketing strategy, it is ever-changing and evolving.  Thinkpod Agency is here to help. Our team can give you a crash course in Inbound Marketing or walk you through how to create customer personas of your own. We can also create them for you and then use that information to deliver targeted content across your website, blog and social media platforms.