By Alistair Norman

Persona to person: new research shows the payback of customer personas — but too few marketers are joining the dots

Content may be intended for millions, but it’s read by an individual. With statistics from recent research, this infographic shows how personas are keeping it real for content marketers.

What creates the more vivid picture in your mind? “Metropolitan Male 5-40, blue collar CD2”? Or “Uncle Bob, who drives a white van, watches EastEnders over a curry, and supports Arsenal”?

The former is a class; the latter is a persona. Both describe an audience — but whereas the old-school demographic description splits out what divides your target from others, the persona shows what unites them. It’s not an abstract segment of the population, but a warts-and-all character sketch of a living, breathing person.

Personas are gold to the team creating your marketing content. But fresh findings from the Content Marketing Institute suggest too few companies are taking advantage of them. That’s a shame, because using them is one attribute of the most successful content marketers.

This infographic shares some of those ideas for building flesh-and-blood models of your ideal customer. Let’s get up close and persona(l).

Persona to person new research shows the payback of customer personas but too few marketers are joining the dots (NO CTA) (1)

Bob is one individual. But he’s also an idealised illustrative case – which means he may represent thousands of customers, even an audience of millions. Imagining him as a single individual, a persona, can bring your target audience to life for your marketing team, in glorious technicolour and across multiple channels.

A persona turns dry data about your ideal customers into a rich and deep understanding of a typical individual, in terms everyone in your company can comprehend. The five traits in this infographic give you a great start. Treat your persona well, and Bob’s your Uncle.