6 Immediate Benefits of Creating Buyer Personas For Your Business

A wise person once asked, “If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?”

Well, what if you create a whole bunch of content, send out hundreds of emails, go to dozens of trade shows, redesign your website and pay for advertisements on Google or Facebook and your messages don’t resonate with the audience they’re in front of, do your messages make a sound?

Creating buyer personas ensures that your messages do make a sound. In fact it ensures that your messages are targeted and they make loud enough sounds that the right audience will engage with your company as they conduct research to ultimately make a purchasing decision.

As more and more marketing and business development efforts are focused on a digital strategy, it is important that companies create buyer personas so that these efforts are executed efficiently and effectively. Companies invest thousands of dollars every year in content creation, email marketing, website design, social media and many other types of marketing and lead generation tactics; Even trade shows and PPC garner huge investments from companies of all sizes. This list doesn't even account for the large amounts of money and man-hours invested in salaried employees whose goals are to collectively help your company grow.

Each time a company gets their message in front of a prospect, website visitor or lead, they hope that it resonates well enough that the person receiving the message finds enough value in it to then explore their services and solutions further, convert on an offer and one day become a customer.

Two questions you should be asking yourself:

• Is my current messaging attracting the right prospects?

• Is my current messaging specific enough to these prospects that the correct value is being conveyed and their needs are being addressed on a 1:1 level?

Who are buyer personas right for? Everyone.

Companies across all industries and of all sizes can benefit immensely from creating buyer personas. The task is time consuming but the results are well worth it.

Here are 6 immediate benefits to investing in the creation of buyer personas for your company:

By completing an in-depth buyer persona exercise you will have not only a list of new keywords but in turn you will also have new ideas and topics for content such as blog articles, eBooks, webinar & PowerPoint presentations, case studies, and videos that will address the challenges you've uncovered for each of your buyer personas on a 1:1 level. Your new content will address these key topics and also apply your key marketing messages in a round about way so that you are delivering valuable content and becoming that trusted advisor to your website visitors, new leads and even to your existing customers.

By completing an in-depth buyer persona exercise you may discover that your website either a) speaks too generally to all of your buyer personas at once and thus may actually 'speak to nobody,' or b) your website may not have enough content geared towards 1 or more of your buyer personas, thus leaving some of your buyer personas wondering if you really can help them at all. You may discover that each of your buyer personas need their own section on your website so that you can clearly explain how you provide value to each of them in a relevant, unique way.

By completing an in-depth buyer persona exercise you will be left with valuable company assets and documents that will be useful when you are having strategy meetings. These meetings may just be your marketing team coming up with new offers or content or they may be multi-department meetings, such as sales and marketing, where these documents can be used to keep everyone focused on the key messages that resonate with your buyer personas and thus will ensure efficient and effective streamlined efforts.

Do you have an additional benefit of creating buyer personas to add? Please feel free to contribute in the comments section below.