

I just returned from a speed networking event at the University of Iowa School of Journalism and Mass Communications. It’s called “speed” for obvious reasons. In a one-hour span, I met and talked with 20 students — each of them at different stages of earning their degree.
The way it works is simple but effective. Imagine two big circles with professionals shaping the outside circle and students forming the inside circle — just like the alignment of musical chairs (except no one ever gets kicked out).
The event was a unique win-win. In a three-minute window, students meet and pitch to professionals in desired future careers, while we have face-time with prospective interns or job candidates. When time is up, the organizer blows a whistle and the student circle shifts clockwise to the next professional.
In B2B dealer communications, getting similar networking time with key dealership staff is extremely insightful in learning how to create and deliver content to meet their needs. But when we can’t stand in circles, shake hands and have that live interaction, content marketing teams can still make connections with dealers through the creation of personas.
Personas are a powerful tool that can help drive every aspect of a marketing effort, from tone of voice to channel selection to message. In essence, personas offer snapshots of a dealer audience member that serve as the ultimate networking substitute.
Dealer personas are a valuable resource to better understand dealers and their needs, track their content habits and preferences, and ensure that the manufacturer they represent is spending its time and resources on the right content topics and in the right media and channels. Personas give us the ability to segment this audience and track their interest in and engagement with a company’s communications and content.
Depending on the type of dealership operation, we may only develop a couple of personas or several. We have identified seven key target audiences who typically receive dealer communications and have driven the creation of personas:
We can start to build personas once we understand the segments of an audience through market research, or if we base them on our knowledge and real-life experience with them:
Dealer personas are a combination of our experiences with the audience along with information from many sources, including:
As we learn more about these dealer audiences, their needs, content preferences and challenges, we periodically update dealer personas. To effectively create relevant messages for dealers in the language they can relate to, we need to define them. Once we put a face and personality to the dealer groups we’re trying to reach and influence, we can create a networking experience that inspires them to excel.
Like what you read? Sign up for our quarterly e-newsletter to get more insights, industry trends, case studies and news from Two Rivers Marketing straight to your inbox.