To develop a successful content strategy, you need to clearly define your content's target audience – your ideal customer profile and the buyer personas involved in decisions to work with you.
Buyer personas are in-depth representations of critical people who work at your ideal customer companies. They go beyond demographics and represent their challenges, fears and aspirations. What are they looking to achieve, and which other people in their world help or frustrate their decisions?
Your buyer personas should cover five key questions:
- Change Drivers: What causes buyers to invest in solutions like yours, and what is different about buyers who are satisfied with the status quo?
- Success Factors: What operational or personal results does your buyer persona expect to achieve by purchasing this solution?
- Perceived Barriers: What concerns cause your buyer to believe that your solution or company is not their best option?
- Decision Criteria: Which aspects of the competing services, solutions or companies do your buyers perceive as being most critical, and what are their expectations for each?
- Buyer's Ecosystem: Who and what impact your buyers as they evaluate their options?