Wednesday’s book marketing tip for authors

An author’s online marketing success has more to planning than creativity; tools like visitor persons help authors identify the content their market wants to find on their blog and website.

The finest web content and design will fail to sell an author’s books and back-end services unless the content and design delivers helpful, relevant, and easy-to-locate information!

What are personas?

Personas are 1-page, planning worksheets that profile the characteristics, concerns, and goals different categories of website visitors. Think of personas as composite views. They help you answer questions like:

• Who is visiting your website? Personas provide a simple framework for authors to use developing a profile of the different categories of visitors to their website. What is their age, occupation, and sex? What are their attitudes?
• Why are they visiting your website? What are your visitor’s concerns? What are the problems they’re trying to solve? What are the goals they’re trying to achieve? In either case, what’s holding them back? What keeps them up at night worrying?
• What are they looking for? W hat are their goals in visiting? What information are they seeking? What tasks do they want to complete on your website?
• Where are they in your marketing funnel? Marketing funnel describes the relationship stages that visitors go through as they make the transition from prospect to reader to client. Have they already purchased their book, or are they likely to be first-time visitors? What is the next step in furthering your relationship with the visitor?
• How did they locate you? Are they likely to come directly to your website, or are they likely to arrive after visiting a search engine? What are the keywords they likely brought them to your site?

Finally, visitor personas should also describe your competition. They should list the other websites visitors are likely to have visited? Who are the other authors and experts they may turn to for information and assistance?

Tips for creating visitor personas?

Here are some ideas for putting the power of personas to work planning your blog and website content:

1. Create different personas for each of the main categories of visitors to your website. Each persona should reflect a unique market segment, or type of reader. In most cases, 3 or 4 personas can be enough to provide a new perspective on blog and website content and design.
2. Give each persona a name to bring them to life. Hearing their name should remind you of the characteristics, attitudes, goals, and needs, of an entire category of website visitors.
3. Frequently review your personas. Each review provides an opportunity to review their accuracy and appropriateness. Each review is likely to suggest new content ideas for upcoming blog posts and website features.

Format options for personas

They can be as simple as 1-page, 1-side worksheets that can be filled-out by hand, as shown above. Authors can also create personas using mind mapping software like Mindjet’s MindManager, as shown at left.

Although personas are one of the 7 most essential tools of online marketing success for authors, personas do not have to be complicated to be effective. What’s important is that you take them seriously and get in the habit of frequently referring to them in order to focus your blog and website content on the true needs of your blog and website visitors. Link to revious posts. Question: Do you use personas? Share your comments and questions, below!