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Lesson 06: Building a Real Buyer Persona
Who is your customer, really? On why most buyer personas are invented rather than researched — and how to fix that.
Written for Axiom Pathways.
Traces the buyer-persona method back to software designer Alan Cooper, who built his original 1985 persona from real interviews rather than imagination — and argues most marketing teams have since flattened the technique into guesswork, inventing personas like “Customer Service Rep Chris” with no research behind them. The fix is procedural: interview five people who fit the customer profile, listen for their actual language and frustration rather than pitching them anything, and let the patterns across those conversations build a persona grounded in real words instead of assumed demographics.