In this edition of Thursday Trends: Thought creating customer personas was a walk in the park? Think again and then learn a great persona-generating process. Find out more about the data deluge coming soon, learn how to incorporate long-form content into your strategy, and get the easy answer to why your content marketing strategy is still on standby.
Turns Out, Creating Buyer Personas Isn’t So Simple, After All
Buyer Personas: One Method Doesn’t Fit All via Content Marketing Institute
If you’re in marketing, then you’ve seen them before. Customer personas, an in-depth profile of fictional (imagined) individual who is likely to buy your product or sign up for your service. The persona outlines this fictitious person’s problems, worries, fears, likes, dislikes, wants, and needs. It might even describe the type of car they drive and the sort of house they might live in, be it a yurt or a mansion.
In an earlier article from Content Marketing Institute, the author claimed creating a buyer persona was as simple as asking just three questions. While they still believe it can be done in some cases, this recent article goes further in depth, describing the nuances and intricacies that make creating customer personas a much more delicate, refined art. The updated article now suggests taking different approaches to your personas, in addition to conducting interviews and probably asking more than just three questions.
Eating, Sleeping, and Breathing Data Machines
IoT-Powered Content Marketing via CIOReview
Have you ever sat down to create a customer persona and wished you knew more about your audience. How they sleep. What they like to eat. How they exercise. What time they leave the house. As creepy as it might seem, all of this information would be priceless to marketers. Imagine if purveyors of sleep aids knew exactly which consumers had trouble staying in dreamland. The internet of things (IoT) could soon provide answers to every question marketers have about their customers.
Pretty soon, you should be able to know whether your customers eat Wheaties for breakfast, according to this recent article from CIOReview, thanks to the internet of things. Smart refrigerators, smart home security systems, exercise tracking devices, connected sleep monitors, and more will all be harvesting data with limitless potential for content marketers everywhere. Read the full article to find out how you can get ahead of the curve and prepare to decipher the data.
Long-Form Content Marketing: Is It Worth the Effort?
Using eBooks to Generate and Nurture Leads for All Your Marketing Campaigns via WriterAccess
In content marketing, we’ve become accustomed to accommodating an audience with a short attention span. We focus lots of time and energy on social media posts, one-off lists, and short blog posts. Some audiences, however, crave more in-depth content, especially near the beginning of the customer journey.
This article from WriterAccess explains how eBooks provide a perfect platform for you to educate an audience by introducing long-form content to interested ears and open eyeballs. Although imagining, outlining, and actually creating an eBook might seem like a daunting task, this article takes you through the entire process of developing an eBook, explaining the best time to introduce one to your audience, how to create compelling content, and what type of information is most important to include. Take a look to find out whether eBooks could be your next big content marketing move.
The Simple Explanation to All Your Content Marketing Woes
Why Content Marketing Isn’t Working for You via Business 2 Community
Content marketing takes work. When it doesn’t work for you, it’s super frustrating. To figure out why, you can dive into your data, change your strategy, switch publication channels, or make any number of infinite adjustments. Before you give up and try other marketing avenues, consider the following two simple solutions as explained in this article from Business 2 Community.
The truth is there are lots of reasons why your content marketing might not be going so well, but this article boils it down to the two most common reasons: 1. You’re not consistent and 2. You’re trying too hard to sell. Take a look at the full article to learn more about what most people nowadays want from content marketing, branding, and businesses in general. Hint: It has more to do with who you are than what you’re selling.
Jennifer G is a full-time freelance writer and editor with a B.A. in creative writing from the University of Montana. She enjoys researching and writing creative content to engage readers and developing professional voices for clients across all industries. She specializes in medical, health, veterinary, and financial writing. Having worked nearly thirteen years in finance, Jennifer applies her experience in the banking industry (marketing, social media management, consumer and commercial lending, customer service, accounts, and bookkeeping) to her writing work within the industry.
