The wonderful world of marketing is no longer as clear-cut as running ads and newsletter campaigns.

In the age of ad blockers and growing consumer ad fatigue, marketers are constantly on the lookout for new techniques to engage with their target audiences and provide them with relevant content. To do this, you need to establish a relatable brand personality that not only shows your audience empathy—-that you care about their problems, and have exactly what they need to solve them—-but also develops trust. This trust is exactly what makes you stand out above your competitors.

How do you get started on establishing a relatable brand personality?

There are many types of online content that could give your brand a helping hand, but there’s one in particular that helps you personalise your brand like no other: buyer personas!

The integration of buyer personas into marketing strategies can be a real competitive advantage for your business—which is why more than 44% of B2B marketers already use this resource, and 86% say they intend to use it in the future. Not only has the use of buyer personas been shown to increase email open rates by 2 to 5 times, but it’s also been shown to increase email click-through rates by 14%, and boost email conversion rates by 10%.

But how does this work?

When it comes to optimising your marketing strategy, the secret to knowing how to serve your audience—or prospective clients—-best, is to know them. With so many different ways of acquiring traffic on social platforms, the fact is, if you want to bring your audience to your website or profile, you need to know how to approach them, regardless of your chosen channel. By including buyer personas in this process, you have the potential to increase website traffic by up to 210%, and organic search traffic by 55%.

If that’s not enough to sway you, here are some more interesting statistics:

82% of the companies that used buyer personas were effective in creating quality value propositions
90% of the companies that use personas claim to understand their audience well
81% of the people interviewed stated that they expected the use of personas to help them understand their audience.
After the experiment, 90% acknowledged that this actually happened.

Keeping these statistics in mind, it’s clear that buyer personas truly are important in the field of Digital Marketing. Not only do they help companies invest their time and money in the most effective way possible, but also to target an audience that has a better chance of forming a customer base.

How do I create and use my buyer personas?

Good marketing collateral resonate with audiences by making them feel like it was created exactly for them. Sounds like something of a challenge, doesn’t it? It doesn’t have to be.

One of the easiest, most effective use of buyer personas is creating an animated explainer video. To go about this, the first and probably the most important step is to decide on your buyer personas—personified representations of who you think your average clients or customers are.

Some common things to consider when creating these can include:

Their general age
Where they come from
How they dress
How they talk (language, accent, slang)
What are their preferred social media platforms

The resulting virtual characters will all have names, ages, personal backgrounds, and jobs—-consequently becoming your buyer personas.

Naturally, the research process behind this requires a lot of time and patience, but it truly is the basis for effective brand communication in the long run. A great way to get started is through conducting surveys and interviews with current customers, prospects, and maybe even potential customers. You can also analyse the requests you receive through your website’s contact form, or ask your sales team to detect recurring problems, needs, and desires.

Once you’ve officially defined your buyer personas, the next step is to select which profiles—if not all of them—you’re aiming to target with your animated explainer video. By using these personas as your characters, you can rest assured that the content you develop will undoubtedly make your audience identify with it. Custom characters also add a powerful human touch to your company, and bring out emotions that should remain attached to your brand for a long time.

Animated explainer videos truly are one of the most effective tools to boost your content marketing strategy, as they allow you to communicate with your audience in a more engaging way than text or static images alone. Especially when, instead of trying to reach everyone, you put your focus on the right people by understanding their problems, desires, and needs, and offering them effective solutions through relevant and more personalised content.