Are you a writer working on a piece of marketing content that’s just not going well for you? The process feels like wading through a swamp; your bullet points read like a shopping list, hook lines have been around the block, and the prose is prosaic. There could be a few reasons for this malaise, but most likely, you’ve neglected your reader persona.
In this article, we explain everything you need to know about the reader persona, why you need it, how to create one and why it’s a content writer’s best friend.
So, if you want to make your content sparkle, read on.
An article from Patrick, a Berlin-based writer and copywriter. When he’s not writing, you’ll find him taking a summer dip in one of Berlin’s many lakes.
What is a reader persona?
To start, let’s define the term. A reader persona is your target audience squeezed into the figure of a single hypothetical person.
It represents the kind of person you’d want to be interested in your product, service, story, philosophy, song, or whatever it may be that you are trying to impart through your writing. You’ll also see it called the buyer persona, which is the potential buyer of your product or service.
Who can they be?
Anyone in your target audience: the magazine editor you’re pitching to, the stressed-out corporate executive looking for a yoga retreat, a shop floor operations manager, or even a teacher or a dog walker looking to expand their business.
Your personas have interests, habits, desires and worries just like real people, so thoroughly understanding them will help you engage more effectively with your reader.
And if you have a range of topics in your field, you can, of course, have more than one reader persona in your target group.
Why do you need one?
There are many benefits to having a reader persona. Here are just a few.
More targeted content
Having a persona will help you focus on the most critical points you need to address to your audience. It also makes the writing process easier and faster for you.
Better audience engagement
Because your content speaks directly to the audience, it will be more engaging and relevant to them and keep their attention.
Content improvement
As you grow your brand or scope, you can develop a reader persona according to feedback from your audience (such as surveys, social media posts, etc.). This helps you keep your content up to date with the latest trends and audience interests.
How do you create one?
To create an effective reader (or buyer) persona, you first need to know your audience, so doing some market research is essential.
Step 1 Demographics
The first step is to find out who your audience is. Who is the person your writing is going to reach most? Using demographics is an excellent way to create personas for your niche. This means finding out about things like their:
- Age
- Location
- Martial status
- Gender
- Education
- Income
Some handy tools for finding demographic information are Google Analytics or Facebook audience insights.
Step 2 Psychographics
Next, you want to gather information about your audience’s interests, values, preferences and attitudes.
What do they like to do in their spare time? What are their hobbies? And, importantly, why do they want to read your content? What are they trying to get out of it?
By delving into such questions, you’ll learn more about their personalities and get insights into your niche audience’s motivations, hopes and fears.
You’ll discover the pain points and problems they are trying to solve. Then you can craft your content around providing solutions.
Useful tools for gathering psychographics include reddit and its keyword research tool, internet forums on your topic and social media posts. Also, asking for opinions via surveys or focus groups is an excellent way to gather information.
Step 3 Persona creation
Now that you have all the information, you can create your virtual reader persona. Give them a name and a biographical history. List their interests, values, hopes and dreams. Focus on their challenges and pain points. The more realistic you make it, the better it will be.
For example, our stressed-out corporate executive from above (let’s call him Jan Hanson from Hamburg) is still looking for a weekend yoga retreat. When you’re writing content for Yoga Retreats GmbH, he could be just one of your persona clients. By crafting your content to appeal to his specific wants and needs, your results will be more relevant, engaging and likely to drive higher conversion rates, enhancing customer satisfaction and loyalty.
Whatever your writing style or goals, having a reader persona (or multiple personas) will significantly improve your content’s appeal and persuasive power. Try it next time and see your writing soar!
For more content writing advice, check out our blog: Five tips for writing great content.
