Content Strategy & SEO

Bloggerguy75
Member

How Do I Create Buyer Personas Before I Begin My Website Or Blog?

SOLVE

Hello,

 

I've been reading and reading all about building buyer personas, but most of the content I'm absorbing talks about looking at your current buyers, etc. What I'm trying to do is build some buyer personas before I publish content or sell anything. I literally have no website or blog yet, so I have no data to look through. 

 

How the heck do I go about building solid buyer personas that can help guide my content from the very beginning? Thank you for any guidance! 🙂

1 Accepted solution
Phil_Vallender
Solution
Most Valuable Member | Diamond Partner
Most Valuable Member | Diamond Partner

How Do I Create Buyer Personas Before I Begin My Website Or Blog?

SOLVE

Hi @Bloggerguy75


Happy new year. 


You're personas can and should be living documents that evolve over time along with the development of your business, your understanding of your audience and the knowledge of what works and what doesn't. 

 

If you are in the position of starting a business now, you already now enough about your target buyer (persona and company) to create you initial persona. In addition to what you know, do some desk research using LinkedIn, Fourms or other online places where your target buyers hang out.

 

It's preferable to base personas on actual customers and real feedback, but by no means is this essential for getting started. 


There are of course many persona templates and guides out there. If your business is B2B, however, we created one specifically for that which cuts out some of the unnecessary and confusing aspects of consumer personas: B2B Persona Workbook

 

Hope this helps.

Phil Vallender | HubSpot Website Agency

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Phil_Vallender
Solution
Most Valuable Member | Diamond Partner
Most Valuable Member | Diamond Partner

How Do I Create Buyer Personas Before I Begin My Website Or Blog?

SOLVE

Hi @Bloggerguy75


Happy new year. 


You're personas can and should be living documents that evolve over time along with the development of your business, your understanding of your audience and the knowledge of what works and what doesn't. 

 

If you are in the position of starting a business now, you already now enough about your target buyer (persona and company) to create you initial persona. In addition to what you know, do some desk research using LinkedIn, Fourms or other online places where your target buyers hang out.

 

It's preferable to base personas on actual customers and real feedback, but by no means is this essential for getting started. 


There are of course many persona templates and guides out there. If your business is B2B, however, we created one specifically for that which cuts out some of the unnecessary and confusing aspects of consumer personas: B2B Persona Workbook

 

Hope this helps.

Phil Vallender | HubSpot Website Agency
kitakamikyle
Participant

How Do I Create Buyer Personas Before I Begin My Website Or Blog?

SOLVE

Hi Phil,

 

I'm going thru the same mental process right now trying to understand the timing of persona creation.

 

1) If I interpreted your response correctly, you are saying even in the absence of a blog, customer, or even a product, then go with *some* form of persona to start with, and then adapt it over time as you get more data.  Does this sound like I'm on track with your thoughts?

 

2) Can that initial persona be modeled after myself?  or a fictitious set of people that I believe might fit my target customer persona?  

 

Mu appreciation in advance,

Kyle

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Phil_Vallender
Most Valuable Member | Diamond Partner
Most Valuable Member | Diamond Partner

How Do I Create Buyer Personas Before I Begin My Website Or Blog?

SOLVE

Hi @kitakamikyle

 

1) Yes. The purpose of a persona is to help you create content that is relevant to your buyer, not just to you. The first mistake many businesses made in the past was to blog about themeselves (product launches, funding rounds, new hires, event attendance, etc). This topics have very little relevance to annoymous searchers who have not heard about you yet. To get you blogging about your buyers challenges,  your peronsas do not need to be advanced at the outset. 

 

2) You could be a model for your persona, if you are or have been a model of the ideal buyer, but yes, the persona should be a definition of the customer you want most/can help best. 

 

Hope this helps.

Phil Vallender | HubSpot Website Agency
0 Upvotes
Bloggerguy75
Member

How Do I Create Buyer Personas Before I Begin My Website Or Blog?

SOLVE

Thank you very much, Phil! I appreciate your very clear answer. I realized after a lot of reading and feeling it out that something like this might be the answer, but no one was really directly saying as much.

 

So, thank you for piping in, here! 🙂

 

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