How to Make Your Personas Less Vague and More Valuable
Why Most Personas Fall Flat
Let’s be honest: most customer personas are too basic to be useful. You’ve probably seen one that reads, “Marketing Manager, 35–50, likes coffee and efficiency.” Then it’s buried in a folder, never referenced again. These personas check a box, sure, but they rarely help anyone make smarter decisions.
The problem isn’t that personas are inherently bad. It’s that they’re often treated like a branding exercise instead of a strategic tool. A strong customer persona should help your team move faster, communicate more clearly, and execute with confidence. If it’s not actively shaping campaigns, content, product direction, or sales messaging, it’s just a placeholder. And placeholders don’t convert.
Common Persona Red Flags
You don’t need a degree in psychology to spot a broken persona. Just look for these symptoms:
- Built entirely from internal guesswork
- Filled with fluff (like hobbies or favorite apps) but no pain points
- Everyone interprets them differently
- They haven’t changed in years—even though your customers have
- Sales ignores them because they don’t match real conversations
If any of these sound familiar, you’ve got a persona problem. Good news? You’re not alone, and it’s fixable.
How to Turn Data Into Real Traits
A lot of persona development starts with the wrong question: “What do we think our buyer cares about?” The better question is: “What have they already shown us?”
Here’s how to build personas using actual data, not assumptions. Think of it like cleaning your kitchen, get rid of the decorative jars and focus on what people actually reach for.
Don’t: Assume interests based on job titles
Do: Track what pages they visit, what content they download, and how long they stay
Don’t: Create goals based on your campaign ideas
Do: Use behavior to infer intent—are they browsing, evaluating, or ready to act?
Don’t: Write one mega-persona that “sort of” fits everyone
Do: Segment based on meaningful differences in how users behave, not just who they are
Don’t: Add generic attributes like “values innovation”
Do: Back it up with proof, maybe they click into case studies or download RFP templates
Your CRM, site analytics, email data, and support logs are full of signals. Use them to shape personas that reflect the real buyer journey, not just what someone sketched on a whiteboard in 2019.
Interview Tips for Stronger Persona Research
There’s no better source of truth than the people already buying from (or ghosting) you. Interviews are your shortcut to relevance, if you do them right.
Start by talking to both fans and skeptics. You’ll learn just as much from someone who almost chose you as from someone who renewed for the third year. And keep your questions focused on the journey, not just the product.
Here’s how to get value out of every interview:
- Talk to both happy and frustrated customers
- Ask about how they discovered you and what else they considered
- Dig into who was involved in the decision, and what tipped the scale
- Explore what made them hesitate or delay
- Capture the language they use to describe their challenges and wins
Then, take those insights and validate them with your internal teams. Sales hears objections. CS hears friction. Together, they’ll tell you everything your Google Form couldn’t.
Giving Personas Real Voices, Goals, and Objections
Here’s where customer personas become something useful: when they talk like real people and reflect real scenarios.
Every persona should have a story arc. Give them a reason for seeking help. Spell out what they’re trying to fix or achieve. Anticipate what makes them nervous. And for the love of all things strategic, include a quote they might actually say in a meeting.
Forget “VP of Marketing, age 42.” Try “Most Likely to Ghost Your Drip Campaign.” It’s more memorable, more human, and way more useful in a brainstorm.
When personas are grounded in purpose, not just profile fields, they become a compass for your content and campaigns.
Getting Team-Wide Buy-In on Updated Personas
A great persona that lives in a dusty slide deck isn’t helping anyone. For your personas to make an impact, the whole team has to use them, and believe in them.
Don’t just email the doc and call it a day. Bring it into the room.
- Present updated personas in a short internal meeting, ideally cross-functional
- Show how each team benefits: from copywriters to product to sales
- Ask for feedback and assign team leads to keep each persona fresh
- Link the doc in your Notion, Airtable, or wherever people are already working
- Use the persona as a reference in meetings, not just onboarding
Once people see that the persona helps them do their job better, they’ll actually want to use it.
How to Apply Personas Across Marketing and Sales
Personas shouldn’t live in the branding corner of your drive. The best ones travel across your entire go-to-market team.
Marketing can use personas to plan content clusters, refine messaging, and run smarter ads. Sales can use them to prep talk tracks, handle objections, and personalize outreach. Even product teams benefit—from prioritizing features to mapping onboarding paths.
Tools to Manage and Update Persona Docs
You don’t need another PDF to bury. You need a living, searchable, team-friendly workspace.
Notion is great for structured, linked documentation. Airtable can help connect persona traits to campaign data or creative assets. FigJam or Miro work for live workshops and visualization. Even a well-maintained Google Doc can work—if you keep it updated.
Just make sure someone owns it, it’s reviewed quarterly, and it reflects reality. If your personas are more than 6 months out of date, they’re probably already wrong.
Want Personas That Actually Work?
We help teams go beyond the generic slide deck to build customer personas that drive real decisions, from strategy to copy to sales calls. Let’s build the kind your team actually wants to use.