I even scheduled a Facebook event. Because Meta wants me to turn every Facebook post into an event, I set one up for Monday at 8 am (Pacific Daylight Time).
Nothing special at the event; I’m not even planning to go live. Just a time to check to see if the video is posted, and to spend 32 seconds watching it.
Biometric marketing leaders already know that I’ve talked about reader personas to death. But what about WRITER personas? And what happens when you try to address ALL the reader and writer personas?
Reader personas
While there are drawbacks to using personas, they are useful in both content marketing and proposal work when you want to tailor your words to resonate with particular types of readers (target audiences, or hungry people).
I still love my example from 2021 in which a mythical Request for Proposal (RFP) was issued by my hometown of Ontario, California for an Automated Biometric Identification System (ABIS). The proposal manager had to bear the following target audiences (hungry people) in mind for different parts of the proposal.
The field investigators who run across biometric evidence at the scene of a crime, such as a knife with a fingerprint on it or a video feed showing someone breaking into a liquor store.
The examiners who look at crime scene evidence and use it to identify individuals.
The people who capture biometrics from arrested individuals at livescan stations.
The information technologies (IT) people who are responsible for ensuring that Ontario, California’s biometric data is sent to San Bernardino County, the state of California, perhaps other systems such as the Western Identification Network, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
The purchasing agent who has to make sure that all of Ontario’s purchases comply with purchasing laws and regulations.
The privacy advocate who needs to ensure that the biometric data complies with state and national privacy laws.
The mayor (Paul Leon back in 2021, and still in 2025), who has to deal with angry citizens asking why their catalytic converters are being stolen from their vehicles, and demanding to know what the mayor is doing about it.
Probably a dozen other stakeholders that I haven’t talked about yet, but who are influenced by the city’s purchasing decision.
Writer personas
But who is actually writing the text to address these different types of readers?
Now in this case I’m not talking about archetypes (a topic in itself), but about the roles of the subject matter experts who write or help write the content.
I am currently working on some internal content for a Bredemarket biometric client. I can’t reveal what type of content, but it’s a variant of one of the 22 types of content I’ve previously addressed. A 23rd type, I guess.
But what would happen if someone in a role other than product marketing consultant wrote this content?
An engineer would emphasize different things. Maybe a focus on the APIs.
A finance manager would emphasize different things. Maybe an ROI focus.
A salesperson may focus on different things. Maybe qualification of a prospect. Or eventually conversion.
So the final content is not only shaped by the reader, but by the writer.
You can’t please everyone so you’ve got to please yourself
With all the different reader and writer personas, how should you respond?
Do all the things?
Perhaps you can address everyone in a 500 page proposal, but the internal content Bredemarket is creating is less than 10 pages long.
Which is possibly already too long for MY internal target audience.
So I will NOT create the internal content that addresses the needs of EVERY reader and writer persona.
Which is one truth about (reader) personas in general. If you need to address three personas, it’s more effective to create 3 separate pieces than a single one.
Which is what I’m doing in another project for this same Bredemarket biometric client, this one customer-facing.
And the content targeted to latent examiners won’t mention the needs of Paul Leon.
In which I address the marketing leader reader persona
So now I, the biometric product marketing expert writer persona, will re-address you, the biometric marketing leader reader persona.
You need content, or proposal content.
But maybe you’re not getting it because your existing staff is overwhelmed.
So you’re delaying content creation or proposal responses, or just plain not doing it. And letting opportunities slip through your fingers.
Normally these blog posts are addressed to Bredemarket’s PROSPECTS, the vendors who provide solutions that use biometrics or other technology. Such as identity proofing solutions.
But I’ve targeted this post for another audience, the organizations that BUY biometrics and technology solutions such as identity proofing solutions. Who knows? Perhaps they can use Bredemarket’s content-proposal-analysis services also. Later I will explain why you should use Bredemarket, and how you can use Bredemarket.
So if you are with an organization that SELLS identity proofing solutions, you can stop reading now. You don’t want to know what I am about to tell your prospects…or do you?
When you buy an identity proofing solution, you take on many responsibilities. While your vendor may be able to help, the ultimate responsibility remains with you.
Here are some questions you must answer:
What are your business goals for the project? Do you want to confirm 99.9% of all identities? Do you want to reduce fraudulent charges below $10 million? How will you measure this?
What are your technology goals for the project? What is your desired balance between false positives and false negatives? How will you measure this?
How will the project achieve legal compliance? What privacy requirements apply to your end users—even if they live outside your legal jurisdiction? Are you obtaining the required consents? Can you delete end user data upon request? Are you prepared if an Illinois lawyer sues you? Do you like prison food?
A new Government Accountability Office (GAO) audit found the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has not exercised sufficient oversight of its digital identity-proofing program…
As many of you know, the IRS’ identity proofing vendor is ID.me. The GAO didn’t find any fault with ID.me. And frankly, it couldn’t…because according to the GAO, the IRS’ management of ID.me was found to be deficient.
“IRS was unable to show it had measurable goals and objectives for the program. IRS receives performance data from the vendor but did not show it independently identified outcomes it is seeking. IRS also has not shown documented procedures to routinely evaluate credential service providers’ performance. Without stronger performance reviews, IRS is hindered in its ability to take corrective actions as needed.
“ID.me acknowledges that its identity-proofing process involves the use of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies. However, IRS has not documented these uses in its AI inventory or taken steps to comply with its own AI oversight policies. Doing so would provide greater assurance that taxpayers’ rights are protected and that the technologies are accurate, reliable, effective, and transparent.”
You would think the IRS had a process for this…but apparently it doesn’t.
Dead on arrival (DOA).
But I’m not the IRS!
I’ll grant that you’re not the IRS. But is your identity proofing program management better…or worse?
Do you know what questions to ask?
Let Bredemarket ask you some questions. Perhaps these can help you create relevant external and internal content (I’ve created over 22 types of content), manage an RFP proposal process, or analyze your industry, company, or competitors.
“Too often, network teams focus on availability, while security teams chase threats after the fact. That separation creates gaps — gaps that attackers exploit.”
Ricker’s solution:
“iVALT unifies remote access and identity security through:
Instant, passwordless biometric authentication
AI-resistant technology that stops deepfake and synthetic identity fraud”
I was curious which biometric modalities and vendors iVALT supported, so I looked it up.
iVALT appears to use PingOne DaVinci, which orchestrates everything.
The only biometrics specifically mentioned by iVALT are those captured on a mobile phone.
But it’s unclear to me whether these are the biometrics captured by the phone’s operating system (for example, TouchID or FaceID on iOS), third party biometrics, or all of the above.
Of course, most people don’t care about the minutiae of supported biometric modalities.
But some do…because all biometric algorithms do NOT provide the same accuracy or performance.
“If you need a consultant for marketing or proposal work, and your company is involved in the identification of individuals, Bredemarket can accept the work.”
Because…I learned at 7:30 that morning that my individual identification employer was no longer my employer. Several of us lost our jobs that day.
As it turns out, my view of my employment future was overly optimistic.
“Maybe I’ll find a new full-time position in a couple of weeks, and I’ll again have to reduce hours and scope.”
As it ended up, I didn’t…and I haven’t.
Your credentials are too impressive, so we are moving in a different direction.
And I’m paying full price for my healthcare—no employer subsidy.
Product and service marketing is deceptively easy…because there’s no need to market to everyone.
I just calculated the numbers. Of the world’s population (not counting non-person entities) a generous (!) maximum of 8,000 people are hungry and interested in buying the services Bredemarket provides.
The true number is probably more like 800, but let me fantasize for a moment.
Unreal fantasy.
Or to put it another way, 99.9999% of people have absolutely no interest in Bredemarket.
But I didn’t privately contact people and gloat about my byline.
Well, with two exceptions. Because I wrote briefly (one sentence) about third-party risk management, I privately alerted two TPRM professionals who wouldn’t have seen it otherwise.
“Employ third-party risk management (TPRM) to minimize the risk when biometric data is stored with cloud providers, application partners, and companies in the supply chain.”
Pearls and ice
Other than that, I engaged in no private messaging, even to long-standing biometric professionals.
Some of the biometric professionals saw my blog or social mentions of the guest post and were duly impressed.
Others likely saw my blog or social mentions and didn’t care one bit.
The rest never saw my blog or social mentions, which meant that they didn’t actively follow Bredemarket, which again meant that they didn’t care at all.
The whole pearls before swine story plays here.
Or selling ice makers to Eskimos.
A lost cause.
Whatever example you prefer, there’s no need to market your product to those who don’t give a REDACTED about it.
Bredemarket 