​Businesswoman and socialite Kim Kardashian often gets unfairly labeled as talentless.
 
“People used to be like, ‘Well, what do you do? What’s your talent?’ And I’m like, “Didn’t know I needed one.” But I think my talent is marketing and the business behind selling products,” Kardashian said in Interview Magazine.
 
Contrary to the accusations she faces for being talentless, Kardashian is one of the most savvy and successful entrepreneurs in the U.S. today.
 
And that success stems largely from her knack for being a natural at content marketing.
 
More recently, she announced her foray into private equity, launching her own private equity firm, SKKY Partners, with a former partner at investment firm the Carlyle Group.
 
Kardashian got to this point by turning herself into a brand. That brand began with Keeping Up With The Kardashians (KUWTK), a reality TV show that launched in 2007 and spanned 20 seasons.
 
KUWTK is a brilliant example of content marketing. It did not sell anything to audiences. Rather, like all great content marketing, it stimulated interest in Kardashian and the rest of her family.
 
KUWTK did that through building narratives and storylines that helped cement the brand Kardashian is today.
 
The show catapulted Kardashian towards lucrative brand deals and it also helped her launch her own brand lines, which span everything from shapeware to skincare to beauty.
 
And like all great content marketing, it grew her brand and her network.
 
KUWTK was the catalyst that led to Kardashian’s massive reach and influence across not only Hollywood, but also an array of other industries.
 
For better or for worse, Kardashian is one of the most influential figures in shaping culture today.
 
To get to this point, she trailblazed marketing techniques that B2B companies are only now beginning to use in their content marketing strategies.
 
Kardashian’s content marketing strategy is predicated on two things: personalization and humanization to grow her brand.
 
In the early aughts of her career, Kardashian would share quite a bit about her personal life. And through KUWTK, and subsequent talk show appearances and interviews, she humanized her brand, trying to make herself relatable to audiences while also somewhat unattainable, just enough to keep audiences locked in for more content.  
 
Kardashian is anything but talentless. She is the queen of content marketing, and she has been using it back when content marketing wasn’t even a profession.
 
And after she’s done with studying law, I wouldn’t be surprised if she taught marketing at one of the top U.S. business schools.
 
Either way, Kardashian remains a masterclass in thought provoking and engaging content marketing. And that takes quite a bit of talent.

Last week, I drove nearly six hours north of Toronto to a remote lodge on a lake surrounded by nothing but Canadian boreal forest.
 
It’s one of those spots that not only makes a great set for a horror story, but also the perfect place to find peace and solitude.  
 
It’s also a great place to write.
 
And that’s what I did up there; sat at a desk—and sometimes on a Muskoka chair—and wrote, working on a horror novel that continues to fall on the back burner. But up there, working on my manuscript became a priority.
 
Specifically, I worked on developing characters; understanding what makes them tick. I’m talking everything from their motivations, greatest strengths to greatest weaknesses and their individual quirks.
 
Marketers are familiar with this. We often create individual personas that define our ideal customer. Understanding who your customer is creates alignment around messaging when developing marketing campaigns. It helps with delivering the right services and with creating better products that address the needs of customers.
 
But what does it take to create a customer persona?
 
Consider the Customer Details
 
If developing fictional characters has taught me anything, it’s that being as detailed as possible is the way to go. Detail helps you develop a clearer picture of who your customer is, and it goes beyond just listing demographics. Because two people who are the same age, gender and race could have completely different lived experiences that make them behave in strikingly different ways.
 
Consider the Customer Journey
 
Each of the characters in my horror story are in different stages of their lives. And as marketers, we know that customers in different stages comes to the buyer’s journey. A customer looking to solve a problem your company provides is in a whole different headspace than a customer who has signed up for your podcast and newsletter. Considering the motivations of customers at the various stages of the buyer’s journey goes a long way in developing an accurate customer persona.
 
Consider Standardizing Your Customer Personas
 
Scaling your marketing efforts in mid- to large-sized companies comes with its own set of challenges. It’s why marketing departments should consider creating templates around customer personas, which can be used consistently during marketing campaigns or when developing products and experiences. Marketing is everything connected to the process of profitability and one way to remain profitable is ensure efficient use of resources and time. Creating customer persona templates helps with that.
 
Final Thoughts
 
The similarities between creating fictional characters and developing customer personas are uncanny. The success in developing either lies in being as detailed as possible and recognizing where in the journey your customer/character stands.
 
 
 

There’s always an array of tabloid magazines at the checkout lines in grocery stores.
 
Even amid the print media downturn, those magazines seem to thrive. The reason for their success? They talk about people.
 
Sure, most of the stories are sensational and many would argue, untrue. But tabloids do something to keep us engaged. They appeal to human emotions by talking about people.
 
There’s a simple lesson here for those who want to create engaging content in the B2B space. And no, it doesn’t entail using gutter tactics to engage your audience.
 
Instead, the lesson is to focus on humans. And less on your products or services.
 
You can, of course, talk about your products or services—just centre it around people. How did your product or service serve people? How did it help them grow? Save money? Succeed? Make their lives easier?
 
No matter what industry you’re in, there’s one subject that intrigues everyone: people. Talking about people leads to more powerful storytelling, and as this Harvard Business article notes, storytelling is an effective way of helping your audience learn new things.
 
Good storytelling, especially stories that involve people, sticks in the minds of your audience. Good storytelling is often remembered longer than stats or facts about your product or service.

Consider this point when you’re crafting that new product or service case study or writing that blog post on the latest update to a product your company sells.
 
And the next time you’re in a supermarket glancing at those tabloids, think about how you would tell your company’s story if it was on the front page of one of those magazines.