Once you have developed your personas, use them throughout content development. The personas are your touchstone for any content questions.
While you are first drafting content, keep your personas in mind, and use them to guide and drive the direction and focus of content development. The easiest way to do this is to ask questions or set scenarios:
In writing a booklet about the health risks associated with exposure to asbestos in the home and how to safely handle asbestos materials, your personas might be:
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Mary, a first-time home owner who has just bought an older house
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Nalini, who is planning to build an extension to her family room
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José, who is a plasterer involved in domestic renovation work.
By giving the personas specific roles, it is easier to see what questions they might ask and how best to explain things to them. In writing the text, ask yourself:
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What would Mary want to know about the possible risks and how to protect her family?
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What does Nalini need to know about approval and safe renovation processes?
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How can I write this to convince José of the importance of health and safety measures?
It is also important to keep the personas alive throughout drafting, editing and refining of the content:
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Keep talking about your personas to make sure you are meeting their needs. You can appoint people in the team to lead an ongoing discussion of the personas, or just talk about them in meetings and planning sessions.
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Update and revise as you obtain new information about your target audience or if the audience changes. Just like real people, personas should change over time. You may need to develop new personas or discard redundant ones. You can schedule regular update sessions for this.
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Make personas visible. Perhaps make them into cardboard cut-outs or posters. Ask attendees to come to planning sessions in the character of a particular persona and provide input from that point of view, or invite real members of your audience who fit the characteristics of the persona.
