B2B Personas: 5 DIY Hacks to Help Drive Your Content Strategy Forward

B2B PERSONAS: You’re Doing it Wrong!5 DIY HACKS TO HELP DRIVE YOUR CONTENT STRATEGY FORWARD

P R E S E N T E D B Y

Is your customer view cobbled together from afar?

Are your personas just a reflection of your own assumptions?

Do you toot your own horn too much

with your content?

If the answer is yes to any of these questions, then your content experience likely feels like this.

Gross.

You will condition your customers to tune you out.

With different goals and objectives, internal teams aren’t always on the same page when it comes to creating content that’s relevant.

Time for a change?

HACK #1: Narrow down your target audience

• Select the most influential roles in the buying center

• Don’t dwell on too many titles and flavors of the same role – pick one as a marker

• Start with 1-3 targets and expand over time

HACK #2: Determine “must-have” information

Role In theBuyingcenter Pain

points

Infoneeds

Content preferences &

behaviors

Trusted sources

What are the top 5 data points you need

at a minimum to inform your content

strategy?

HACK #3: Search for the missing pieces

• Social listening• Focus groups• Surveys• Phone interviews• Internal SMEs• Job descriptions• LinkedIn profiles• Conference agendas• Blog/article comments• Communities

You are not lost at sea; there are plenty of sources of information:

HACK #4: Socialize them

Work hard to promote customer empathy throughout the organization and bring your personas to life.

Don’t put your personas out to pasture.

HACK #5: Revisit your personas periodically

As market conditions change, so do your customers’.

RELATED READING

B LO G S• Persona-Based Marketing: Measure Twice and C

ut Once• The Three C’s of Digital Transformation• On Being Authentic• The Conundrum of the Tech Marketer• Where Does Your Content Journey Lead?

T H O U G H T L EA D E R S H I P• Is Your Customer at the Heart of Your Organizatio

n’s Culture? (presentation)

• Cisco Journey Case Study (presentation)• Alchemy of Content (eBook)• Content Supply Chain (eBook)

ComBlu provides content marketing strategy, change management guidance, and governance to brands such as Cisco, Capital One, VMware, TransUnion, BMO Harris Bank and others.

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