I disagree with many of the methods used by marketing specialists, business coaches, and business programs teaching entrepreneurs to describe a target audience by creating a buyer persona. In theory, the process sounds good, but from my experience mentoring small business owners, many struggle to connect with the people depicted in their buyer personas.
What is a buyer persona? A buyer persona is a fictional representation of a key audience segment that you’ve identified as having a particular interest in your product or business.
Why the Current Approach Is Wrong
I can give you hundreds of examples of buyer personas that failed in the real world. Before I share a few, let’s discuss why many marketing specialists and business programs continue teaching strategies that don’t always produce results.
Marketing specialists are often teaching what they learned in school or what sounds good in theory. I work with marketing and advertising firms regularly, and many of them struggle to define their own target audience, yet they confidently teach others how to do it. The advice they give doesn’t always work for their own businesses.
Small business programs face a similar challenge. Many receive government funding to help entrepreneurs start businesses, secure funding, and grow the economy. Their mission is admirable, but many instructors are no longer actively running businesses or participating in today’s marketplace. As a result, there is often a disconnect between what is taught in the classroom and what actually works when selling products or services. In many cases, the strategies are based on textbooks or methods that worked years ago but have become outdated.
I speak with entrepreneurs every day who have earned business degrees but have very little understanding of how business operates in the real world. A business degree is valuable if your goal is to work for a company. If your goal is entrepreneurship, the best education comes from building and running a business yourself.
I always tell aspiring entrepreneurs that if they commit to learning their industry and how to do business, they’ll eventually outperform people whose only experience comes from corporate, textbooks, and classroom projects.
Let’s look at some of the major challenges entrepreneurs face when their buyer persona does not reflect the realities of their actual customers.
The Problem with Buyer Personas: Example #1
The majority of buyer personas I review are flawed from the start because they are built around a fictional character instead of a real person.
I read buyer personas filled with conflicting characteristics, unrealistic lifestyles, income levels, and buying behaviors.
For example, one entrepreneur who owned a candle company created a buyer persona named Tracie. According to her profile, Tracie is single, shops at Whole Foods, earns $80,000 a year, travels with friends several times each month, lives in the city, rents a luxury loft, drives a Mercedes, carries Louis Vuitton handbags, loves luxury brands, and has a weekly self-care routine.
The problem?
Tracie is probably living beyond her means. Unless she’s independently wealthy, which her income doesn’t suggest, that lifestyle doesn’t align with reality.
From my experience as an entrepreneur, someone with those interests is far more likely to purchase home fragrances from recognizable brands like Bath & Body Works or luxury brands like Jo Malone London, Diptyque or Nest New York. Consumers who value luxury brands often buy the name just as much as the product.
The candle company sold premium candles priced between $15 and $25. There was no reason to build an entire marketing strategy around someone chasing luxury status.
Why Didn’t This Buyer Persona Work?
Because it didn’t reflect the habits of real people or the customers most likely to value her products.
When only three characteristics of a buyer persona apply to your actual customer but your marketing is built around ten assumptions, everything begins to fall apart. Your brand positioning, website copy, packaging, pricing, fulfillment, sales channels, and marketing messages are all directed toward the wrong audience.
It’s like selling to Harry Potter instead of Daniel Radcliffe.
Harry Potter is a fictional character. Daniel Radcliffe is a real person with real habits, interests, needs, and buying behaviors.
When you build your buyer persona around real people instead of imaginary characters, it becomes much easier to position your products and communicate their value.
The Problem with Buyer Personas: Example #2
Another example came from a woman who owned a custom barware and wine accessories company.
She wanted to market exclusively to wealthy consumers.
Why?
She loved watching flashy reality television shows. Those shows became the inspiration for her buyer persona. She wanted to target the wealthiest households in Buckhead, Midtown, Sandy Springs, and West Midtown in metro Atlanta.
The problem was that her products didn’t match that audience. They sold for less than $40. Her catalog featured heavily bedazzled wine charms, wine bottle stoppers, wine chillers, bottle openers, and tumblers with bright-colored rhinestones and gaudy designs.
Affluent shoppers who regularly entertain at home generally aren’t buying inexpensive imported products decorated with rhinestones and novelty embellishments.
There is certainly a market for these products; it just isn’t the audience she originally envisioned. Customers who appreciate colorful, customized, and decorative items are far more likely to value her products than affluent households.
Why Didn’t This Buyer Persona Work?
Again, because it didn’t reflect the habits, interests, or lifestyles of affluent consumers.
Everything—from the products and pricing to the website, packaging, customer experience, and sales channels—appealed to a completely different audience.
She built her buyer persona around reality television characters pretending to be wealthy instead of real affluent clientele.
The Problem with Buyer Personas: Example #3
My final example is for business owners who believe everyone fits within their target audience or that every business needs what they’re selling.
I once worked with a business owner who operated a mascot company. His idea was to place company advertisements on the mascots while they attended community events. Guests would see the mascot, take photos, and, in theory, remember the businesses being promoted.
On paper, the concept sounded interesting.
The business owner believed companies would gladly pay for this type of advertising because every business needs marketing and advertising to increase awareness.
Once he entered the marketplace, however, he quickly discovered that event venues, restaurants, bars, food trucks, cafés, and catering companies had no interest in the service.
Why Didn’t This Buyer Persona Work?
The business owner assumed this form of advertising would appeal to businesses simply because they needed to market themselves.
That assumption became the foundation of his buyer persona.
There was no evidence that restaurants, food trucks, event venues, or catering companies wanted to advertise through mascot sponsorships or viewed it as an effective use of their marketing budget.
Drawing from my experience owning a food photography and food styling business, I know the food and hospitality industry has many other marketing opportunities that typically generate greater awareness and a better return on investment. Social media, local events, festivals, partnerships, public relations, and professional photography provide more value than advertising on a mascot.
The biggest mistake wasn’t the idea itself.
It was the lack of research.
His buyer persona was built on the assumption that businesses view all forms of advertising equally, making his offering inherently valuable to his target audience.
The reality was very different.
This example highlights why it’s critical to speak with your potential customers before developing a product or service around them. You need to understand how they allocate their marketing budgets, which advertising channels they use, where they look for new opportunities, and what they believe will produce the best results.
The more information you gather from real people, the less likely you are to build a buyer persona based on assumptions instead of marketplace demand.
How to Properly Build a Buyer Persona
You may have heard this advice before: “Don’t use yourself when creating a buyer persona.”
I think that’s terrible advice.
If you genuinely fit within your target audience, start with yourself.
If you’ve experienced a particular problem, chances are many other people have experienced it too.
When I started my pet wellness brand, I used myself as the starting point because I was dealing with my dog’s health challenges. I made a list of my habits, hobbies, interests, and lifestyle, then used that information to identify other pet parents with similar experiences.
This approach only works if you truly belong in your target audience.
I’ve owned businesses where I wasn’t the target customer. In those cases, I researched the people who would benefit most from my products and services instead.
Why Starting with Yourself Works
Because you’re a real person.
The best information comes from talking to real people, not creating imaginary lifestyles in your head.
If possible, survey potential customers and ask questions about their habits, interests, hobbies, and lifestyles.
If that’s difficult, use yourself as a starting point and continue gathering information as you meet more people within your target audience.
What If You’re Not Your Ideal Customer?
Begin by identifying the people who would benefit the most from your products or services.
Not the people you want to sell to.
Not the audience that looks impressive.
The people who will truly value what you offer.
Then find those people, both online and offline.
Ask questions. Conduct short surveys. Learn about their habits, hobbies, interests, lifestyles, buying behaviors, and pain points.
If it is difficult to gather feedback, begin researching your direct competitors.
Study their websites, newsletters, product descriptions, reviews, testimonials, and advertising.
Website copy reveals who they’re speaking to.
Customer reviews reveal what buyers love, what frustrates them, and what they wish was different.
Testimonials reveal the outcomes customers value most.
Use that information to improve your products and customer experience. Save examples of marketing materials, advertisements, and packaging whenever possible. Every piece of information helps you build a buyer persona based on real people, real problems, and real solutions.
Moving Forward
A buyer persona should never be built from assumptions or fictional lifestyles.
It should be built from real people, real conversations, real buying habits, and real marketplace data.
The closer your buyer persona reflects reality, the easier it becomes to develop products people want, write marketing that resonates, choose the right sales channels, and build a brand that attracts customers who genuinely value what you have to offer.
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