Creating a persona
Choose a role, tailor it to your audience, and create a persona to try your message with.
Start with the person you want to write to. A role is enough to create a Standard persona. Add company details or known circumstances only when you have them.
Choose a role
Open Create persona on the Personas page, pick a role, then choose Set up persona. Some screens call a role a seat; they mean the same thing.
Search by job title or function. Search doesn't include role descriptions, so try a title if a skill or responsibility gives you no matches. If you've selected a function filter, it also limits your results.
Make it fit your audience
Add an industry, company size, or markets if you have a particular audience in mind. These target settings are optional. You can go back and change the role without losing them.
Under Known circumstances, select only circumstances you know apply. The first options are ranked for the role; More context contains the rest of the shared catalog. Each option includes an icon and a short description of where that information is usually known from. Changing roles keeps your selections visible alongside the options ranked for the new role. Not sure? Leave them unset.
A Standard persona is identified by its role. The target settings and exact circumstances you select appear later under Known context. Generated scenario or situation copy is not treated as something you told unpitch about the reader.
A few things to know when choosing markets:
- Pick your main market first. The first one you select is treated as the primary market.
- Choose up to five markets. Global stands on its own: selecting it clears the other markets, and selecting another market clears Global.
- Markets you add stay in your workspace's shared list of choices, up to twelve additions. Removing one with × also deselects it from the persona you're setting up.
Create with or without research
Create persona builds a Standard persona using the role and any optional context you selected. Lite is the lowest plan that includes persona creation. On Free, the button shows the plan prompt instead of building.
For live research into your audience, choose Continue to research. The next page explains what research adds and shows an example result. This step does not start a build or use credits. Choose Start research there to launch the 500-credit build, estimated at 10–20 minutes. Back to persona setup keeps your selected role, company details, markets, and circumstances. See Researched personas for plan limits and failure recovery.
Can't find your role?
Clear any function filter and search for the title. If there are no matches, choose Create this role.
Enter the title and the closest function, then answer the questions you can. It's fine to skip a question. Your answers help define the role and guide the research. Once built, the role stays in your workspace's catalog so you can use it again.
Creating a custom role requires Plus or Pro and includes research. On Plus, the persona uses the same saved slot as a Researched persona.
Using suggested roles
If your library is empty, you may see suggestions from your website scan. These create Standard personas without target settings or selected circumstances. Choose manually if you want to add those details. On Free, Create personas and Choose manually show the plan prompt instead.
Skip for now takes you to Home. You can return to the suggestions while your library is empty and they're still available.
If something goes wrong
- "This workspace has reached the saved persona safety limit." Your workspace can save up to 500 personas.
- "This workspace hit its custom role limit. Remove an unused custom role before retrying." Your workspace can hold up to 100 custom roles.
- If the app says your active workspace changed, check the workspace on the refreshed screen before trying again.
- If you see "Could not create the persona. Please try again.", check Personas for a build or result before retrying. The message doesn't tell you whether creation started.