As a marketer or B2B copywriter, you know the importance of setting a goal for each piece of content you create. It could be industry or product education, or you could be pushing traffic to a landing page to increase sales. However, you need more than that goal to be successful. Establishing a clear audience for the piece is just as critical. Writing for everyone is writing for no one!

But what happens when there are multiple potential audiences for your products and services? No, the answer isnʼt to stress. The better approach is to create multiple personas, so you can strengthen the focus of your marketing messaging.

When creating content for different personas, you will leverage the needs, desires, budget, pain points, and other details from your persona in an effort to personalize your message and make it relevant.

While multiple personas arenʼt required for all companies, they are highly beneficial. For companies with multiple products, targeting different market segments and use cases, multiple personas are essential.

Another reason multiple personas is valuable is if you are looking to expand into a new market segment. While the customer in this new market segment might be purchasing the same product the perceived value proposition, use case, motivation to purchase may be unique to the new market segment.

This implies your content must be tailored to the new market segmentʼs particular customer persona in order for it to perform. In order to make these personas actually work, though, you need to establish pain points for each persona. Even if you have one core product with more than one use case, multiple personas will help you target the right people with the right message at the right time based on the particular use case of interest.

Taking this information, letʼs consider your target audience. Can they be clearly narrowed down into one audience, or are they spread across two or three market segments? Itʼs better to have additional personas that helps you narrow down into specific verticals or preferences rather than one ill fit persona that tries to match too many distinct characteristics.

How Can You Use Personas?

As a business owner, you can use buyer personas in just about every element of your marketing strategy. In fact, personas may even be used to create a new strategy or update your current one. While the uses for buyer personas are nearly limitless, there are some key areas you can focus on:

• Content Creation, Marketing, and Strategy

Here’s the thing– you really can’t or shouldn’t write anything if you don’t know who you’re writing to. Developing content without a target audience runs too high of a risk of attracting the wrong readers or even no readers at all. When you know your audience, you can create content that’s interesting, and most importantly, valuable to them. As you use your buyer personas to create a content strategy, be sure to include the buyer’s journey in the development process. Picture it this way– your buyer persona, Recruiter Robert, is in the awareness stage of the journey. He knows he needs help managing talent acquisition and has heard of your company. However, Robert’s not reading to commit to any solution just yet. What type of content would suit his stage at this moment? A short how-to guide full of tips on attracting top talent would be much more appropriate and valuable than a full demo video on your solution.

• Product Development and Enhancement

With buyer personas, you have invaluable insight into the kind of solutions your leads need. Let this information guide your product or service development and enhancement. Create new offerings and update your current services based on those buyer personas.

• Sales and Communications

Knowing where your personas are in the buyer’s journey allows you to connect real leads with the right salesperson at the right time. Take the compiled information and analyze it carefully. What does it tell you about the lead’s communication style? Are you prepared to answer any potential questions or objections they may raise? Do you know when and how to follow up?

• Personalized Marketing Efforts

There’s so much content on the internet that the one-size-fits-all approach is becoming all but obsolete. Leads are wise to, and frankly, irritated by ubiquitous messages. Instead of developing the same general message for each lead, personalize your content with buyer personas. Develop unique emails, blog posts, and opt-in landing pages appropriate to the persona and their place in the buyer’s journey. This technique ensures that your message is well-received and welcome.