In previous units, within the marketing module, the importance of creating online content and the benefits of doing so have been discussed. Such benefits include setting you apart from your competition and establishing your credibility in the industry, along with encouraging clients to relate to you and find out more about your offering and the value you can add.
But just creating content isn’t enough. The content you create needs to be high-quality and directed towards the type of client you most want to attract. Your content, therefore, must be client-centric.
In this article, we advise on ways to create content that will appeal to your desired audience, thereby growing your business, expanding your client base and showing your business as wholly credible and a leader in the industry. We focus strongly on the benefits of building client personas – what these are, how you should go about creating them and subsequently how to manage the personas and keep them relevant once you have them in place, along with other methods you can use in your content creation to ensure that it is client-centric.
1. What is a client persona and why is it beneficial to create these for your business?
A client persona is a fictional representation of your ideal or target client. It is essentially a character that you create which closely depicts the high-value client with whom you typically engage – or would like to engage with more regularly.
Why is this useful?
Understanding the personality type of your typical client enables you to steer your marketing objectives and business approach to their preferences. This includes the social media platforms they frequent and the style of content they relate with most closely. In targeting your approach in this way, you are increasing your chance of reaching your ideal client, engaging with them and then – ideally – attracting them to become your client.
The benefits of creating client personas include:
Establishing trust and credibility: creating client personas can enhance your understanding of your target audience, enabling you to provide more personalised communication, offer relevant solutions and address their pain-points. By consistently meeting your client’s needs and demonstrating a deep understanding of their unique circumstances, you can build a trustworthy reputation, fostering a long-term relationship.
Targeted marketing: defining client personas will enable you to understand your customers more clearly and therefore tailor your marketing efforts to them specifically. By knowing who your ideal clients are, you can develop personalised and focused content that resonates with their needs and interests.
Improved services and product offerings: constructing client profiles will enable your business to develop products and services to meet the specific needs and preferences of your target audience. By considering your ideal client’s goals, pain points and motivations, you can ensure that your offerings address challenges specific to them and provide them with a valuable service.
Improved communication and client engagement: creating client personas will enable your business to communicate with your target clients both more frequently and more effectively. Understanding the language, communication channels and preferred content formats will enable you to create relevant and engaging content that resonates with your audience, leading to higher levels of engagement and interaction.
Informed decision-making: producing detailed client personas will assist with providing valuable insights to inform strategic decision-making. Understanding your target client will help you to make informed decisions based on their needs and behaviours.
Enhanced customer experience: understanding the preferences, behaviours and expectations of your target client can enable you to optimise various touchpoints throughout the client journey – for example, website design or customer support functions.
Working out who is your target client?
A customer segmentation exercise will help to define your most high-value client type. In Client Relationships unit 4, Effective Segmentation details how to carry out such an exercise to segment your clients. In doing this, your client base is divided into smaller groups, which you can then plot on a customer matrix where each of your customers may be positioned. This exercise will clearly show which of your clients provide the most value to your business and is, therefore, your most valuable client type. You may then like to use this client type as the basis to create your ideal client persona. You may also wish to use clients who fall in other areas of the matrix to inform your other client personas. Clients who provide the most value and therefore the most benefit to your business are most likely those whom you would wish to target principally, so creating this client persona first is a sensible course of action.
Do note, however, that if you do not undertake the segmentation approach, you can still produce client personas – the two exercises are not co-dependent, but they are complementary and interconnected.
Should you create different personas for different client segments?
While creating different personas for different client segments is more time-consuming, doing so can prove to be highly valuable. Client segments often have unique characteristics, preferences and needs, and creating personas specific to each segment will enable you to tailor your marketing and communication efforts more effectively, thereby increasing the likelihood of successfully engaging and meeting the needs of your clients.
2. What personas are typical and relevant to the financial advice industry?
The personas that you create for your advice practice will be unique to your business, according to your firm’s specialisation, geographic location and target market, and one size does not fit all in this exercise. However, it is quite likely that there are a few personas that will be typical to the financial advisory industry as a whole and, in this section, we will consider four of the most typical personas in a little more detail.
Young professional
This persona represents individuals in their 20s or 30s who may be starting their careers and have a long-term investment horizon. They may have limited financial knowledge but are keen to build wealth and plan for their future. Their goals may include saving for a deposit for a property, paying off their student loans or investing for retirement.
Family-focused planner
This persona would include an individual or couple in their 30s to 50s who may be juggling family responsibilities, developing their career and working towards financial stability. They may have children and mortgages and their financial goals may include saving for their children’s education, planning for retirement or managing their cash flow more effectively.
Empty-nester
The empty-nester would represent an individual or couple most likely between the ages of 50 and 65 whose children have left home. This stage may mark a transition where the individual or couple may now be able to focus on spending on themselves and not so much on their children, enjoying a newfound freedom and balancing their financial priorities between lifestyle expenses and retirement planning. They will possibly be considering the transition from accumulation to distribution of their wealth.
High net-worth individual
This persona encompasses individuals or couples in their 30s to 50s who are often juggling family responsibilities, career growth and long-term financial planning goals. They often have children, mortgages and financial goals including saving for their children's education, planning for retirement or managing their cash flow effectively.
These are just four examples of a typical client of a financial advisory firm to illustrate the possibilities that may be relevant to you.
3. How to build a client persona
It may seem like an arduous process to build your target client persona, but in this section, we will give you step-by-step instructions to ensure that it is achievable and straightforward.
Group similar characteristics
Using the client segmentation approach, deduce which of your clients are the most valuable to your business. It is likely that the clients who provide the most value to your organisation are the types of client whom you would like to attract with your new content.
Completing the client matrix, deduce which of your clients fall into which category and then group clients with similar characteristics.
By grouping clients with similar characteristics, you can then use these to work out between two and four client personas of clients who fall into your target client category. Regularly evaluating and adjusting the segmentation will ensure that the groups remain relevant and effective in influencing your client personas.
Name and describe each persona
When you have between two and four target client groups defined, you will need to come up with a name and description for an individual fitting this client group. Use all genders for your names and descriptions, noting that alliterative names work well as they are easier to remember. For example, “Empty-nester Emma” or “Professional Peter”.
Once you’ve named your persona, find a headshot that you think suits them. It is worth adding a headshot so you can really gain a clear image of the persona in your mind.
Now give them a personality
Delve into your character in more detail, writing down their personality traits. To help you with this, at the end of this module there is a downloadable document detailing all the requirements to be completed for your client personas, which will ensure that your profile is thorough and complete.
Start filling in the gaps thinking about the answers from your client persona’s perspective. What hobbies do they have? At their stage of life, what are their goals and aspirations? Do they have any specific interests? What do they do in their spare time?
Completing this element of the exercise humanises your client: it brings them to life and makes them relatable. Giving them a personality enhances empathy and understanding and facilitates storytelling. It guides communication techniques and messaging and enables the customer experience to be enhanced. By personifying the persona, you will create a more meaningful and actionable representation of your target client.
Go deeper by incorporating behavioural insights
Now go beyond the basics, looking more deeply into your target client’s behaviour. Do they use the internet? Which platforms do they use? How regularly would they use them and what are their online habits?
By delving into the behavioural insights of target client personas, your business will understand more about your clients’ actions, motivations and decision-making processes. These insights will then serve as a foundation for making personalised content and marketing strategies, to enhance the customer experience and develop products that meet their specific needs and preferences.
How many personas should you develop?
Creating too many personas will dilute your marketing and content creation efforts, so creating between two and four personas is a sensible guide. This should enable you to cover a range of relevant demographics, financial goals and aspirations and personality traits.
Make sure your personas are distinct from each other and represent significant variations in characteristics so you can use them to tailor your content to each segment effectively.
Use the worksheet template
Finally, download our client persona template to guide you through this process and ensure that all aspects of your target client persona’s personality are developed.
4. How to use and gain the most benefit from your client personas
By referring to your client personas when undertaking content creation, you will develop content that is highly relevant, engaging and tailored to the needs of your target audience. This approach will help you to attract and retain the attention of your ideal client, building trust and credibility, whilst driving meaningful engagement. It will set you apart from your competitors.
Let’s look at the elements that contribute towards making engaging content for your client personas in more detail:
Content relevance: using your client personas to influence the content you create will ensure that it is relevant to them. You can use your client personas to tailor your topics and messaging to resonate with their interests and preferences. Using their personas will also enable you to create content that addresses their pain points, challenges and goals, addressing their specific needs.
Tone and language: adapt the tone and language of the content you create to match the communication style of each persona. Ensure you consider their preferred communication channels and preferred method of communication, too. Adjust the tone and style accordingly to ‘talk’ most effectively to each client persona.
Preferred format: consider your target persona’s preferred format for content – do they prefer videos or blogs, or perhaps infographics provide the most meaningful method of contact? By understanding their consumption habits, you can create content in the format in which they are most likely to engage and which resonates with them most strongly.
Personalisation: leverage your client personas to personalise or segment your content. By tailoring content to specific personas, you can provide a personalised and targeted experience. This can include creating separate content series or campaigns that speak directly to the interests and needs of each persona.
Gather feedback: obtaining feedback and data on the performance of your content will enable you to understand engagement rates, social media shares and comments to understand how well your content resonates with each persona. You can use this feedback to refine and iterate your content creation strategies, ensuring your content is continually assessed for relevance and is improved upon.
5. Crafting client-centric content
In order to make content that speaks directly to your clients and has their requirements at the centre of your focus, you will need to fully understand your audience and tailor your content to suit their needs, preferences and interests. Creating target client personas is one way to assist with enabling this, but it is not the only way.
Below, we highlight some additional methods to ensure your content engages with your clients and reaches your target clients, addressing their needs.
Incorporate educational and informative content to empower clients
Focus on creating high-quality content that educates and informs your audience. Understanding your client’s pain points and offering practical tips, how-to guides, case studies and research-backed advice to help them overcome challenges or achieve their goals sets you up as an industry expert, building your credibility and building both your credibility and trust in your brand.
Providing value without a sales approach shows you prioritise the needs and aims of your clients, fostering a positive relationship with your audience. It enables you to establish yourself as a trusted adviser and thought leader in your industry, which should assist in cultivating long-term loyalty and engagement with your clients, along with attracting new clients.
Personalise content formats
Understanding the preferences of your target client will enable you to produce content in formats most suited to them. You may find that your younger audience is more receptive to videos and podcasts whereas others may prefer a blog post. Understanding which formats they will engage with most effectively means you know to produce your content in these formats. Remember that you don’t have to create new content for each format; you can adapt blog posts into videos or podcasts into LinkedIn posts, for example. The most important aspect is ensuring that your target client sees your content and can engage with it.
Use the language of your clients
Adapt your choice of language and tone to align with your target audience, using terminology and phrases that will resonate with them. If you speak your target client’s language, you will not only make your content easier to understand, but you can also build a valuable connection.
Encourage engagement and feedback
Fostering a sense of interaction and engagement with your audience, encouraging comments, questions and discussions, helps to create a dialogue and build relationships with your clients or target clients.
Use storytelling techniques to connect with clients
Never underestimate the power of using storytelling in your content. Stories have the power to evoke emotion and create a deeper connection with your audience. By incorporating narratives, anecdotes or personal experiences into your content you can connect emotionally, which, in turn, fosters a sense of relatability and empathy, allowing clients to connect with you and your brand on a more personal level.
Stories are engaging and memorable: they capture the imagination and draw people in, making your content more compelling. They can also build trust by sharing personal experiences, conveying authenticity and credibility.
Conclusion
Creating client personas and developing client-centric content are essential strategies for reaching and building strong relationships with your target audience. It is important to tailor your content not only through what you say but also through the format and language in which it is said.
Client personas serve as a guiding framework, enabling you to craft personalised relevant and engaging content that resonates with your audience. By continually referring to these personas to create your content, you can build credibility, foster trust and nurture long-lasting relationships with your existing clients. Additionally, this content should also attract new high-value clients.
Client-centric content creation is not just about creating compelling material but also about forging meaningful connections that drive engagement, loyalty and ultimately business growth. Embracing the power of client personas and client-centric content will enhance your marketing efforts and drive success in today’s customer-centric business landscape.
Action points
Thinking about your entire client base and without completing a client segmentation exercise, do you believe you have a “typical client”? If so, consider what sort of personality traits would this client embody.
Now undertake the client segmentation exercise if you haven’t already done so. What are the outcomes? Is your typical client also your most high-value client? Do you have more than one type of high-value client?
Using the findings of the client segmentation exercise, start the process of creating your client personas. Start with creating a persona based on your most high-value client-type. Use our template to help with completing a full image of the personality facets that make up this client.
Write a list of three pieces of content that might appeal to this target client. Use our template to determine the format in which the content should be written. You can use the article Content Marketing in this module to help you with ideas about topics to write about.
Keep an up-to-date spreadsheet of links to interesting articles, relevant to your industry and your clients, to which you can refer for inspiration for social media content creation. Spend ten minutes each day on social media keeping up to date with industry-related articles – LinkedIn and Twitter are useful platforms with which to engage.
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