🧠 How To Used AI to Build Spot-On User Personas (and Boost Conversions)

Tell me if this is you…

You’re doing everything by the book. Ads are running. Content is flowing. Emails are landing in inboxes. And yet—nothing.

Engagement = low.
Conversions = sluggish.

It’s easy to blame the usual suspects: Maybe the offer isn’t strong enough. Maybe the copy needs tweaking. Maybe people just aren’t interested. But more often than not, the real issue isn’t what you’re saying. It’s who you’re saying it to.

Most businesses rely on outdated customer personas. Some don’t use them at all. That means their messaging is built on guesswork, not real audience insights. What you need is a way to create precise, data-driven personas—ones based on actual engagement, not assumptions. Let’s break down exactly how to do that.

📢 Quick favor before we dive in: We’re always working to improve this newsletter. Take a moment to answer this quick survey—we read every response!

By the end of this newsletter, you’ll know how to:

✔ Turn engagement data into detailed user personas.
✔ Use those personas to refine your messaging.
✔ Create marketing that speaks to the right people—and converts.

Sound good? Let’s dive in!

🚀 Step 1: Turn Your Engagement Data into User Personas

🔹 Gather engagement data—Look at your most successful and high performing content:

• Blog posts with high shares & comments
• Ads with strong CTRs
• Social media posts with tons of engagement
• Email campaigns with the highest open & click rates

Then, go to Claude:

🔹 Feed this content marketing data into Claude using this super prompt:

📝 Prompt:

Your task is to analyze a set of engagement data and create user personas based on the patterns you find in the data. User personas are fictional representations of different user types that can help inform product design, marketing strategies, and other business decisions.

Here are the steps you should follow:

1. Carefully read through the engagement data provided in the {$ENGAGEMENT_DATA} section. This data may include information about user demographics, behaviors, interests, challenges, motivations, and more.

2. As you review the data, look for patterns and commonalities that allow you to group users into different segments or personas. Consider factors like their interests, the challenges they face, what motivates them to take action, and how they engage with the product or service.

3. Based on the patterns you identify, create distinct user personas that represent the different user types present in the data. Each persona should capture the key characteristics, needs, and behaviors of a particular user segment.

4. For each persona you create, provide a detailed description that highlights the following:

• A descriptive name or label for the persona

• Demographic information (age, gender, location, etc.)

• Their interests, goals, and motivations

• The challenges or pain points they face

• Their behaviors and how they engage with the product/service

• Quotes or examples from the data that exemplify this persona

<scratchpad> [Use this space to jot down notes, observations, and initial thoughts as you analyze the engagement data and start identifying potential user personas.] </scratchpad>
When you are ready, write out the descriptions for each user persona you have identified, enclosing each one in <persona></persona> tags. Be sure to provide enough detail and context to paint a clear picture of each persona's characteristics, needs, and behaviors.

🎯 What you get:

Claude will return detailed audience personas, including:

✅ Demographics (Age, location, job titles)
✅ Pain Points (What problems do they need solved)
✅ Interests (Topics they engage with most)
✅ Buying Triggers (What makes them convert)

Here’s an example of a user persona I was able to generate using this method:

🔍 Step 2: Use Personas to Get Instant Feedback on Your Content

Now that you’ve got AI-generated personas, you can use them to test your marketing content before launch.

💡 Here’s how to do it:

📣 1. Create a new Claude project.
📣 2. Add your personas to the project.
📣 3. Upload any marketing asset (ads, blog posts, email copy, landing pages).
📣 4. Use this prompt to get AI-driven feedback:

📝 Prompt:

You will be evaluating marketing content from the perspective of a specific persona. Your goal is to identify any gaps, unclear calls-to-action (CTAs), or weak persuasion points in the content, and suggest improvements based on the persona's pain points and interests.
Here is the marketing content you will be evaluating: <marketing_content> {$MARKETING_CONTENT} </marketing_content>

And here is the persona you should evaluate the content from the perspective of: {$PERSONA_NAME}
To complete this task, follow these steps:

1. Read through the marketing content carefully and try to understand the key messages, value propositions, and CTAs.

2. Review the persona details and develop a clear understanding of their background, pain points, interests, and motivations.

3. In the <scratchpad> section below, jot down any initial thoughts on how well the marketing content resonates with the persona. Identify any potential gaps, unclear CTAs, or weak persuasion points from the persona's perspective.

<scratchpad> [Your thoughts and analysis go here] </scratchpad>

4. In the <suggestions> section, provide your suggestions for improving the marketing content to better resonate with the persona. For each suggestion:

• First, clearly identify the issue or gap you are addressing

• Then, explain your suggested improvement and how it better aligns with the persona's pain points and interests

• Support your suggestions with specific examples and reasoning

<suggestions> [Your suggestions go here, following the format:

Issue/Gap: [Clearly state the issue] Suggested Improvement: [Explain your suggestion] Reasoning: [Provide justification based on the persona]...Repeat for each suggestion] </suggestions>

5. Finally, provide a brief overall assessment in the <answer> section on how well the marketing content currently resonates with the persona, and the importance of the suggested improvements.

<answer> [Your overall assessment goes here] </answer>

Be thorough in your evaluation, providing sufficient context and reasoning behind each suggestion. The goal is to provide actionable feedback to improve the marketing content's effectiveness for the specified persona.

🎯 What you get:

Claude will critique your content like a real audience member, flagging:

🚩 Confusing messaging—if your CTA is unclear or weak
🚩 Wrong tone—if it doesn’t match your audience’s interests
🚩 Missed pain points—if it’s not speaking to their core needs

For instance, here’s what Claude says is missing from my sample user persona, “Data-Driven Debbie,” based on the blogs I’ve been writing:

💡 Both the prompts were generated with the help of this super cool tool called Prompt Genie.

Go try it out for yourself:

Until next time,
🚀 The DigitalSamaritan Team