To effectively work your inbound marketing strategy, you need to know who you're targeting. To do this, one of the first things to implement is creating Buyer Personas.

This somewhat strange expression is composed of a first English word " buyer " which means " client " and a second word of Latin origin " persona " which can be translated as" character ".

Thus, it is a " customer persona " i.e., a typical customer profile.

Here are some questions to ask yourself to simply and effectively create your Buyer Personas:

1. How many different Buyer Personas can I identify ?

As a general rule of thumb, it is recommended that you identify 4 or 5 different representative profiles. This number can vary greatly depending on your business.

The Representative Profile is the one that is most relevant to your business.

In B2C for example, sometimes there are nearly a dozen Buyer Personas.

However, if possible, try to limit yourself to 5 at most.

To count your profiles, you will need to draw on your experience as well as that of your collaborators in dealing with customers.

This work can be time consuming but don't underestimate it as it will be at the foundation of your strategy Inbound Marketing !

Make your segmentation based on your typical customer's industry, job title, responsibilities, interests.

If a category of your customers includes mostly women, create a Buyer Persona of female gender instead.

You wouldn't recognize your typical customer on the street, but you should be able to recognize their behavior online

Once this work - quite fun by the way - is done, it will be time to name your Buyer Persona.

It is customary to give a first name that is easy to pronounce and a last name that matches the job.

For example, if you have identified a profile of an IT manager, you might name him Eric Déhayssi (for CIO) or Martin Dirinfo (for IT manager).

2. What is the background of my Buyer Persona ?

For each identified profile, you're going to need to find out their personal story.

Try to imagine a story that is believable for each Buyer Persona.

As an example, let's say your Buyer Persona is a cosmetic product manager named Sarah Chefprocos.

Sarah was born on 10/05/1989 in Montpellier. She passed a Bac B with honors, then entered a preparatory class to graduate from the Ecole Supérieure de Commerce de Nantes (Audencia).

Sarah was born on May 10, 1989 in Montpellier.

She then worked as a salesperson for 2 years at Yves Rocher before joining the Marketing department in Paris.

She lives married in Levallois-Perret, has no children and owns a cat.

Hello Sarah!

Does this description sound too detailed? That's the point ! This way, you'll be able to better tailor your content.

3. What are the interests of my Buyer Persona ?

Let's now turn our attention to the topics that will capture the attention of your Buyer Persona.

Think about his or her professional and personal goals, in terms of career progression for example.

Using Sarah Chefprocos as an example, let's assume that she is subscribed to a few LinkedIn groups dealing with her job.

She'll be happy to find information that will not only help her in her day-to-day work, but may also help her advance to the marketing manager position of her dreams.

Also know how to identify his interests based on his position in the buying journey on your site. Depending on his progress, his attention will be focused on different elements.

4. How does my Buyer Persona get informed ?

Like all Internet users, your Buyer Persona gathers a tremendous amount of information from the web.

The idea will therefore be to know his favorite channels to publish your content there. To do this, organize a brainstorming session with some handpicked employees (and especially, aware of digital innovations).

This way you'll be able to compile a list of all media of interest to the Buyer Persona, and therefore to you.

Don't be afraid to think outside the box. Is Sarah Chefprocos a big fan of theater ? She'll be pleasantly surprised by content coming from your brand on forums dedicated to this art !

Working hand-in-hand with your teams allows you to better identify a Buyer Persona and the ways to reach them!

5. How can I adapt my content strategy and editorial line to my Buyer Personas?

This fifth step is probably the most difficult because it will require you to properly gather all the information you have obtained.

This synthesis will be used to define your editorial line and your content strategy.

First, determine the topics that are likely to interest most of your Buyer Personas.

In fact, producing content is expensive, and producing high quality content even more !

Start by addressing the most encompassing topics and then decline them specifically for each of your Buyer Personas.

Then consider writing about your strengths, emphasizing the topics where your company is legitimate.

If your company is in the forefront of day creams and you want to interest Sarah Chefprocos, choose for example a theme such as "the 5 fruits to privilege to have a beautiful complexion".

You'll be credible to talk about it because you're doing research on the topic.

Understanding your target audience means being able to send the right message at the right time

Finally, you will need to adapt your editorial line to your values (which will have an impact on the tone of your content) and find the appropriate communication media : Text, image, video, infographics, etc. 

If you want to continue with this Inbound Marketing approach, download our checklist without delay.

In addition to defining Buyer Personas, you'll find other steps to take to increase your lead acquisition.