If you’re a marketer, you’ve spent hours researching and developing your buyer personas.  You know how important personas are to your digital strategy.  Your marketing team has taken the time to really understand each persona.  You know their wants and needs, what media channels they use, and how they navigate through the digital world.  You have learned their interests, their hobbies, and what makes them tick.  In a way, it’s like they’re real people.  People that you’ve known forever.  They’re like an old boss, or a long time friend, or that annoying uncle you hope doesn’t show up to dinner. You’ve got them all figured out.  So now you’re ready to launch into the rest of your campaign, right?

Hold up.  You’re forgetting something.

Does the rest of your company know these personas as well as you do?  Have you shared each persona’s story with your graphics department, HR, sales, web development, the C-suite, and those guys in IT?  If you haven’t, you should. In fact, it’s critical for your campaign’s success.  Here’s why.

We said persona’s are like real people, right?  They represent customers who are going to be (potentially) buying your product or service.  They’re the people that your entire company relies on to keep your business open.  It’s vital for everyone to understand these personas.  Their likes and dislikes, habits, attitudes, and beliefs.  Knowing these things will help make everyone’s job easier.  Your sales team will know the best way to speak to them when trying to make a sale.  Your graphic designers can understand what may visually appeal to them.  The people in finance can predict what kind of disposable income they’ll likely be dealing with.  Plain and simple, everyone in your business should understand your customer, even if you’re not in marketing.  Because at the end of the day, if your business isn’t making sales, you likely won’t have a job.

It’s easier than you think to get the rest of your company up to speed with your buyer personas.  At company meetings, bring them up.  Talk about them like they’re actual people in the room.  Use their names in conversation, like “Single Mom Sally is looking for something to save her time.  Is this going to meet her need?”.  Print out little biographies on all of your personas and hang them around your office, so that people stare at them every day.  Give them a real person’s name and photo.  If you start treating them like they’re real, they are going to feel real.  And when they feel real, it is going to become easier to market to them.  Getting your entire company on board with this will make every department run more smoothly, because the end customer will always be in mind.

Understanding your buyer personas is a company-wide effort and a key to effective marketing.