To successfully reach and engage with your target audience, it's important to understand who they are and what they want. This is why buyer personas are essential.
Personas provide a detailed snapshot of your ideal members, outlining their pain points, preferences, and behaviors. By leveraging this information, your association can:
- Create more effective website and content strategies.
- Better optimize your online presence.
- Increase member engagement.
Below, we explore how buyer personas can inform your association's digital marketing efforts.
What Is a Persona?
A persona is a semi-fictional description of a typical or target user that includes various demographic, psychographic, and behavioral information.
By understanding your target audience’s pain points, goals, preferences, and behavior patterns, you can create more personalized and relevant content that speaks directly to their needs, challenges, and interests.
For associations, personas are particularly valuable in developing websites and content strategies that resonate with members. Whether creating in-depth technical content or promoting membership updates and promotions, understanding your personas can help you tailor your messaging and distribution channels to better reach your target audience.
In short, personas are a vital component of any association's digital marketing toolkit.
What Can Personas Inform?
As mentioned before, understanding your member personas can help you create more effective website and content strategies that resonate with your target audience and drive results for your association. Personas can help inform the following marketing elements.
Content Creation
As an association, your members have unique interests and needs. By developing personas, you can gain a better understanding of the following:
- Who are they?
- What do they want?
- How can our association meet their needs and provide them with value?
This knowledge can help you create content that resonates with them at each stage of their user journey, such as technical white papers, case studies, webinars, and blog posts. By showcasing your expertise and thought leadership in your industry, you can establish your association as a trusted resource and a valuable part of your members' professional lives. This can increase the perceived value of membership and encourage more people to join and stay active in your association.
Keyword Research
Keyword research is crucial for SEO on association websites to increase visibility and attract more potential members. By conducting thorough research, you can identify the terms and phrases your target audience uses to search for information.
For instance, if your association represents a technical industry, including related jargon and technical terms in your content and metadata can increase your chances of displaying in search results.
⭐ Pro Tip: Install the Keywords Everywhere extension to your browser to always be aware of your monthly search volume, CPC, competition, and traffic trend data. Other helpful tools include Google Search Console, Buzzsumo, and Semrush.
Website Design
Designing your association's website with your target audience in mind can be a game-changer for engaging potential and current members. Using personas, you can inform your website design based on your target audience's preferences.
Think about it: If your member personas are busy professionals who prefer quick access to information, designing a website with straightforward navigation, impactful calls to action, and easy-to-find resources can make it easy (and painless) to quickly find the information they’re searching for.
Whether you need to streamline your navigation, improve your site speed, or enhance your mobile experience, incorporating your personas into your website design strategy can help you create a website that resonates with your audience and supports your association's mission.
Social Media Strategy
Social media is a powerful tool for associations to connect with their target audience. Your personas can help determine which social media channels to use and what content they prefer.
For example, suppose your persona research indicates that your members are active on LinkedIn and prefer professional content. In that case, you should share thought leadership articles on that platform. If your personas prefer quick, brief news snippets, you may prioritize Twitter.
Placing emphasis on the social media aspect of your overall marketing strategy can increase the chances of engagement and brand loyalty. Instead of using every platform, use data to find what resonates with your audience and focus your efforts there.
Email Marketing
If you want to reach your target audience with personalized content, email marketing is the way to go. When you know exactly what type of content your personas find value in, you can deliver it directly to their inboxes and increase open and engagement rates.
It’s likely your association has more than one member persona. You can take your email marketing a step further by segmenting each persona into its own email list and sending content based on each segment’s unique interests. This ensures Nurse Nelly (persona A) receives resources relevant to nursing and healthcare. In contrast, Patient Patty (persona B) receives resources that share health and nutrition tips—with no crossover. Alternatively, you can use smart content within your emails to cater to specific personas more efficiently.
Boost Your Content With Member Personas
Ready to incorporate personas into your association's digital marketing strategy? Our team can help. Learn more about our solutions here and how we can help you create a website and content strategies that engage your target audience and drive results for your association.
Want more content like this? Subscribe to Brightfind's blog. 👇
