What are buyer personas? They are the fastest track to increasing both your lead quality and lead quantity. We’ve all had “dead-end leads.” Whether it’s a lead that is searching for the lowest-cost-provider in your category or one that just isn’t a good fit, we’d love to exchange ten poorly matched leads for one high-quality lead. The costs of missed opportunities and the investment in wasted marketing resources can be significant. Targeting the right customer with the right offer at the right buying stage through an integrated inbound marketing process, can shorten the buying process, improve reach, and reduce your costs of acquisition.
The first step in implementing this highly-targeted framework is developing knowledge and insights about your customer through the research-driven process of building buyer personas. 
What Are Buyer Personas?
Buyer personas are semi-fictional, generalized characters that represent the various needs, goals, and pain points of your real and potential customers. Creating buyer personas is a research process, culled together from interviews, observations, and industry trends to form a composite of your “ideal customer” — what kind of content interests them and where they go for information. They are the foundation for any inbound marketing campaign. Personas are based on observations and measurement of customer behavior, insights derived from those that have first-hand experience with your target customer and from direct customer feedback, such as interviews and surveys.
Simply put, your buyer persona, though a composite of different “real people,” represents the actual person you want buying your product or service.
4 Tips For Using Your Personas To Generate High-Quality Leads
All right, you’ve put in the time and the research, and you’re ready for it to pay off. You’ve got an amazing, thorough buyer persona, now what do you do with it? Here are some next steps to ensure that this invaluable tool doesn’t go to waste.
Create New, Relevant Content
It’s time to create some original content tailored specifically for your personas, keeping in mind all of their likes, dislikes, goals, pains, and aspirations. By creating content that’s relevant and educational, you establish yourself as a thought-leader in your industry, and you become a trusted resource in your field.
Rework Your Existing Content
Revisions to what you already have in place is another great way to get started. An eBook may need something as simple as a new title, or a previous blog post might just need some additional specific demographic or industry information to fit in perfectly with the kind of content best suited for your persona.
Utilize the Right Channels
Why spend your time sharing your content on every social platform, when your target customer only visits two of those sites? In addition to telling you what interests your ideal customers have, buyer personas also let you know where those customers spend their time. Focus your efforts on where your content will have the most reach and make the most impact.
What Are Buyer Personas Used for in Content Personalization
If your company services clients in both commercial and healthcare industries, you’re going to need separate personas, each with their own unique wants, needs, and expectations. The best way to convert a new prospect is to personalize that experience every step of the way.
With HubSpot’s Smart Content, you can alter the content displayed on your website to align with the person viewing it.
Keep Using Your Personas To Close Your Leads And Delight Your Customers
The job of the Buyer Persona does not end with converting visitors to lead. In fact, personas are valuable in every stage of the Buyer’s Journey. Use the information in your personas to further engage these leads, allowing you to close them into customers, and, ultimately, delight them as they become your advocates.
