2. Understanding the Context: Buyer Personas and Buyer Journeys Regardless of who your target is, it is going to be virtually impossible to create successful content until you understand the context of that buyer’s situation. That means that in addition to knowing who your buyer is, you also need to understand what that person cares about and what their journey to making a purchase looks like. You will also need to understand which points throughout their buyer journey you need to influence in order to drive conversions and move the buyer through the sales funnel. To create that kind of content, you will need to understand three things about your buyers: » Their motivations, pain points, and role in the buying process » Where along their buyer journey they are most likely to get stuck » How to get them unstuck and propel them forward by resolving their concerns The way to develop that understanding is by creating buyer personas and taking the time to analyze and understand the buyer journey. Buyer personas are simply detailed descriptions of the decision-makers involved in a purchase. Creating them formalizes your understanding of your buyers and what motivates them, which is essential for creating content that will resonate. Underscor- ing that point is a 2013 case study from Marketing Sherpa, which found that companies that incorporated buyer personas into 1 their content marketing strategies increased their B2B leads by 124 percent. To create a buyer persona, start by gathering some basic information from customer-facing colleagues and, if possible, inter- viewing your actual customers. You can also mine your company’s databases for valuable information. Your objective is to identify some of your customers’ most important characteristics and to collect a variety of information, including: » The buyer’s title and role in the buying process Are you targeting the CEO, a senior software engineer, or a member of the marketing team? Is that person a gatekeeper, influencer, or champion? Is he a technical or economic decision-maker? 1 “Content Marketing: Targeted Persona Strategy Lifts Sales Leads 124%,” Marketing Sherpa, January 23, 2013. It Takes a Content Factory! | 10