11 Savvy Ways to Use Buyer Personas to Strengthen Your Marketing

Do you know your best customer? Seriously -- do you really, really understand your best customer? For example, do they live in the big city or the suburbs? Watch Jeopardy or Modern Family? Use their iPhone nonstop, or get nervous about new technology? If you don't know the answer, it's time to do some research. Asking these types of questions will help you paint a clearer picture of your target customer -- what marketers like to call their "buyer persona" -- which will help you make smarter marketing decisions that always cater to the needs of your target customer.

The key to successful marketing is making marketing people love. And the first step to making marketing people love is understanding *what* your best customer loves. Once you understand your buyers' loves, needs, and interests, you can use this information to guide all of your marketing moving forward. Not only will you be successful, you'll make your buyers happy! So here are 11 ways for you to start using those buyer personas you created to make smarter marketing decisions that make your target audience love you a whole lot more.

11 Ways to Use Personas to Be a Better Marketer

1) Write blog content that reads like their favorite how-to magazine.

Have you ever read an article that was so relevant to your life -- right at that moment -- that you thought it must have been written just for you? That should be the goal of ALL your content for your potential buyers, particularly your blog content. By knowing what your buyers want to read and then writing it in educational and how-to blog posts, you'll generate avid, loyal readers and subscribers.

2) Post social updates that speak their language.

HEYYY! we bet u wouldnt follow @HubSpot 4long if we twtd like this ALL TH3 TIME!!!!! Alternatively, choosing superfluous and ostentatious terminology for your social interactions may alienate your network ... ahem. Be relatable to your buyer persona by using the language your buyer persona uses. That way your network will be able to relate to your brand, and your marketing will flourish!

3) Hang out where your buyer persona hangs out.

Does your network live for LinkedIn, but hate Twitter? Is there a specific niche social website that your persona can't live without? That's where your business should be most active! Hint: Look for trends in your web traffic from social networks. The channel that has the highest visit-to-lead conversion rate will most likely be the network that works best for you. 

4) Customize your SEO strategy to target the phrasing your persona uses.

This can get interesting! Say you sell electronics and you're optimizing your website for the term "tv remotes." But wait ... what if your target audience actually calls those gadgets clickers? That's a major difference! Be sure to optimize your website content based on the way your buyer persona speaks, and by extension, the way they search.

5) Use humor that your buyer persona finds funny.

Injecting humor into your marketing content is a great way to humanize your brand, but you have to make sure it's actually funny to your target audience. Even more important, you have to make sure it's not insulting to your target audience. The tastes of a 21-year-old man might be a bit different than a gentleman in his 50s, after all. Truly know what your buyer persona finds entertaining. It'd be a shame to accidentally upset one of your prospects when you were just trying to make your brand a little more relatable, and your content a little more engaging.

6) Create an offer that solves your persona's problems.

What does your buyer persona want help with? Is there often a problem that most of your best customers have? Or had when they were your leads, at least? If you can create a document that helps your target audience solve that problem -- and put it behind a form to help with your lead generation, of course -- you'll have a true win-win on your hands. Your target audience gets the help they need, and you generate some seriously high-quality leads!

7) Optimize your landing pages for your buyer persona.

Don't talk about why you think your offer is important. Describe your offer in terms of what it will do for your prospective customer. That type of content is appealing and compelling, and you should see a higher conversion rate after optimization. Not sure what words will resonate best? A/B test your landing page copy to see what resonates best with your target audience!

8) Use technology that caters to their technical level.

Don't ask your customer base to use a technology type that they aren't comfortable using to interact with your website or content. For example, forcing your customer to download a mobile app when they don't have a smartphone might not be the best call. Make sure you understand what type of technology your buyer persona knows, has, and is comfortable using so your marketing content is easily accessibly.

9) Collaborate with partners that excite your persona.

Co-marketing is an amazing way to make your marketing soar -- after all, two heads (and resource sets) are better than one! When choosing your co-marketing partners, try to think of companies that your buyer idolizes, whether they're small or big, and consider if a partnership might be beneficial. You could do anything from launching co-marketing webinars to simply making a donation to a non-profit your persona cares a lot about. You'll develop your brand's authority and thought leadership position, and earn some major likability points with your target audience.

10) Align your campaign timing with your persona's lifestyle.

Does your buyer persona go on vacation every August? Stop work at noon? Live in a different time zone? Read emails from her iPhone when waking up at five in the morning? Cater your campaign launches around these lifestyle nuances. So if your target audience is, say, a night owl, you'll probably want to schedule the majority of your social content around 9:00 to 11:00pm in your target's timezone. Right? Right.

11) Mold your sales process to your persona's decision making process.

This might be the most important tip. Different people need different types of information to make key buying decisions ... and at different stages in the buying cycle, to boot. Make sure you understand what type of details and information your buyer will require before they sign on the line that is dotted, and when the best time is to divulge that information.

What else do you use your buyer persona for in your marketing? How has developing a buyer persona helped you?

Image credit: viZZZual.com