I took up a MOOC through Coursera on content strategy. If you're not familiar with what a MOOC is, MOOC stands for 'massive open online course'. It's a novel concept in education through which students from around the globe can take a course online. They can collaborate, learn from each other and it offers as a rich an experience as one might have in a real world classroom. I found the experience amazing. In some ways, perhaps ever better than what I've experienced in a real world classroom. Through this MOOC I learned interesting new concepts in content strategy, all of which I can take back to work to try out.
As part of the MOOC, we were asked to work on on a case study. The case study involved a fictitious Chinese retailer called Shenshi that manufactures affordable and trendy men's clothing targeted at younger men who aspired to rise to the middle class in China. After its success in China, Shenshi's management have decided launch the brand in your country (wherever you're taking the class from). The assignment involved developing a buyer persona for this brand that exemplified Shenshi's brand values of inspiration, identity and utility. The next piece was developing content around this buyer persona and explaining your rationale behind it. Here's what I came up with:-
Buyer persona
Dan, 22 years from Etobicoke, Ontario is in his final year studying Bachelor of Commerce at University of Toronto. He is very intelligent, loves math, tops his class regularly. Since childhood, he has developed a strong work ethic by watching his parents. He has had to take on a student loan to finish his last year in school. His short term goal over the next year is to get an internship as a trading analyst at an investment brokerage. His long term goal is to be a Portfolio Manager, managing large sums of money. He has worked hard at University in the first 3 years having completed all the tough courses and is now spending most of his time networking to find a job and wrapping up his last few courses. He loves dressing up and is very picky about his clothes. He is independent and likes to shop alone. He loves high end brands but cannot afford them at this time. He likes all sports but is passionate about mountain climbing which he does in the summer months. He is fit and works out thrice a week for 45 minutes/day between classes. He reads the Globe and Mail, Bloomberg, NYTimes and Financial Post to stay current. He also has a fictitious stock portfolio that he tracks meticulously. He looks up to Steve Jobs, Warren Buffet and Richard Branson all for different reasons. Dan has a smartphone, travels in mass transit to get to school and for his networking events. He is contemplating an MBA at a top business school in a few years and knows that he needs to be thrifty over the next few years so that he can pay off his debt and save up for the MBA.
Content Piece
As part of the MOOC, we were asked to work on on a case study. The case study involved a fictitious Chinese retailer called Shenshi that manufactures affordable and trendy men's clothing targeted at younger men who aspired to rise to the middle class in China. After its success in China, Shenshi's management have decided launch the brand in your country (wherever you're taking the class from). The assignment involved developing a buyer persona for this brand that exemplified Shenshi's brand values of inspiration, identity and utility. The next piece was developing content around this buyer persona and explaining your rationale behind it. Here's what I came up with:-
Buyer persona
Dan, 22 years from Etobicoke, Ontario is in his final year studying Bachelor of Commerce at University of Toronto. He is very intelligent, loves math, tops his class regularly. Since childhood, he has developed a strong work ethic by watching his parents. He has had to take on a student loan to finish his last year in school. His short term goal over the next year is to get an internship as a trading analyst at an investment brokerage. His long term goal is to be a Portfolio Manager, managing large sums of money. He has worked hard at University in the first 3 years having completed all the tough courses and is now spending most of his time networking to find a job and wrapping up his last few courses. He loves dressing up and is very picky about his clothes. He is independent and likes to shop alone. He loves high end brands but cannot afford them at this time. He likes all sports but is passionate about mountain climbing which he does in the summer months. He is fit and works out thrice a week for 45 minutes/day between classes. He reads the Globe and Mail, Bloomberg, NYTimes and Financial Post to stay current. He also has a fictitious stock portfolio that he tracks meticulously. He looks up to Steve Jobs, Warren Buffet and Richard Branson all for different reasons. Dan has a smartphone, travels in mass transit to get to school and for his networking events. He is contemplating an MBA at a top business school in a few years and knows that he needs to be thrifty over the next few years so that he can pay off his debt and save up for the MBA.
Content Piece
Does this piece of content resonate with the target audience?
Whether you're a B2B or a B2C company, it's absolutely crucial to develop a buyer persona before creating any content. Even if you've worked in the same industry for many years and believe you know everything there is to know about your buyers, remember that buyer personas are never based on intuition. You do have to take the time to speak to your buyers and shadow them as they go about their day to really understand them. Go beyond metrics that are easy to measure such as demographics and try to understand their goals, aspirations and motivations to enable you to create content specific, relevant and meaningful to them. In Part 2, I'll discuss the rationale behind this piece of content.
Whether you're a B2B or a B2C company, it's absolutely crucial to develop a buyer persona before creating any content. Even if you've worked in the same industry for many years and believe you know everything there is to know about your buyers, remember that buyer personas are never based on intuition. You do have to take the time to speak to your buyers and shadow them as they go about their day to really understand them. Go beyond metrics that are easy to measure such as demographics and try to understand their goals, aspirations and motivations to enable you to create content specific, relevant and meaningful to them. In Part 2, I'll discuss the rationale behind this piece of content.