Many of us in content or inbound marketing are likely still reeling over the latest Google announcement. You know the one I am talking about; the one where they are going to start encrypting all keyword searches, even for those when the searcher was not signed in to Google.

Now that my stomach is back in the position where it rightfully belongs, I have come to peace with this. I have regained my senses and I realize it’s OK. We are all going to be OK. Why? Because we are about delivery quality content, not seo games.

Sure, like you I rely on keyword research for many content marketing or inbound marketing needs, from understanding the language of our audiences, to identifying blog topics, so when the keyword change is implemented it will be inconvenient.  And, undoubtedly, we’ll spend more on paid options for keyword info

What it all means is that now more than ever you must ensure that your set point for your marketing trajectory is spot on: and that’s your buyer personas. Getting started right affects your trajectory, it’s the difference between sinking the ball in one stroke or three. Or not at all.

Relevant content is going to keep attracting but we need to know with data-driven certainty about certain beliefs of those we are trying to attract. What matters to them about our product or service? And why?

These profiles provide insights about your buyers and are step one to launching content campaigns that effectively persuade. Like many organizations, you know your audience well, your marketing is successful, but without robust buyer personas you might be working with a dull tool. And your marketing, while successful, could still be falling short of it’s potential.

The rise in demand for content that achieves business goals is paralleled by the swift and constant pace of change in technology and business. To meet that demand and to deliver content that performs, you need an accurate and current understanding about your buyers’ perceptions of you and your services. With the keyword changes upon us, we need the sharpest tools we can get, not to mention deep skills in using them.

When we looked to increase the power of our persona tools, our research led us to these two resources:
• Buyer Persona Institute
• Tony Zambito

The Buyer Persona Institute offers a Buyer Persona Master Class for $349. We subscribe to BPI’s approach and have taken the Master Class, so we can offer this cautionary note: creating buyer personas is not something you want to heap onto an already busy workload. It is time consuming and complex, but worth it. Since a keen understanding of your buyer is so critical to the trajectory of your results, it is critical to get right.

Tony Zambito doesn’t promote that he would train you in his approach, so likely you need to hire him directly. Whereas with BPI, you can hire them or any of their Master Class cohorts. Zambito offers many products like the Buyer Persona Story Mapping™, or the Buyer Insight Bridge™, which aims to bridge the the gap between CMOs and Sales, a much discussed gap in recent years.

If you have ever seen a buyer persona before, I’ll bet you’ll feel like a buyer persona virgin once you see a great one. A great persona triggers ideas for strategy and tactics to start flowing upon first glean. They are actionable, useful, and sharp tools.

If you already have your personas developed, give them a look now, if you don’t have aha! moments or didn’t originally, then they are likely a dull tool. I wish I could show you a persona here now, but you will understand that they are highly confidential. I’ll append this post soon though with a link to an example buyer persona that is being developed that will have you hearing the hallelujah chorus.

So go ahead Google, lock away the keyword search data, we are armed with killer buyer personas. Have Content, Will Deliver Results!

New: B2C.com published this article on 12 Ways to Measure Content Effectiveness After Google’s “Not Provided” Decision.