A Persona tells the AI who the reader is. A Vertical tells the AI what world they operate in. Both travel into every content workflow together.
A persona without a vertical is a person without an industry. The AI can write for them, but it will write generically. Add a vertical and the AI knows it is writing for a health coach, a B2B SaaS founder, or an independent retailer, and the output reflects that.
You only need verticals for the industries your business actually serves. Keep the list tight.
By the end of this playbook you will have at least one Vertical record in your own system, ready to attach to a Persona. Once attached, every content workflow becomes audience-specific automatically.
The industry or niche label. Short and scannable. Shows in persona pickers and content workflow dropdowns across your OS.
Two to four sentences. Who they are, what they do, what makes them distinct. Write it like a briefing note, not a marketing line.
The name is just a label. The description is what the AI actually reads.
"Small business owners" gives the AI almost nothing.
"Solo operators running bootstrapped service businesses under $500K with no marketing team" produces output that sounds written for a real person.
Fill in your tool and your audiences. Paste into whatever AI you run. It will create your Vertical records and write strong descriptions for each one.
Replace [TOOL] with where you are building — Notion, Airtable, Google Sheets, or any other system. Replace [YOUR AUDIENCES] with a quick list of the industries you actually serve.
I am building a Verticals system as part of a
content operating system.
A Vertical is an industry or niche record.
It has two fields:
Name: the industry or niche label,
short and scannable
Description: 2 to 4 sentences describing
who this audience is, what they do, and what
makes them distinct. Written in third person.
This text will be passed to an AI at content
generation time, so specificity is critical.
I am building this in [TOOL].
The industries and niches my business
serves are:
[YOUR AUDIENCES]
Please help me:
1. Set up a Verticals table in [TOOL]
with Name and Description fields
2. Create one record for each audience
3. Write a strong, specific Description
for each one that includes:
- Who they are and their role or situation
- Company or business size if relevant
- Their primary decision-making authority
- Their mindset and what they respond to
- What makes them distinct from similar
audiences
4. Show me the finished records for review
Write all descriptions in third person.
Do not use generic language. Every description
should be specific enough that an AI could
tell this audience apart from a similar one.Copy either of these and adapt to your actual audience. Notice they describe a real person in a real situation, not a category.
Name: B2B SaaS Founders
Description:
Founders and co-founders of early to
mid-stage B2B SaaS companies, typically
1 to 50 employees. They are the primary
decision maker for marketing and content
strategy. Time-poor and skeptical of hype.
They respond to specificity, systems
thinking, and real results over theory.
Building in public or actively
considering it.Name: Independent Retailers
Description:
Owners of single-location or small-chain
retail stores, typically 1 to 10 employees.
They handle buying, operations, and
marketing themselves or with one part-time
person. Compete against big-box stores on
experience and community. Value practical
advice over theory and trust peer
recommendations over brand marketing.Both include company size, decision-making authority, mindset, and what the audience responds to. That specificity is what makes AI output feel written for someone instead of written for everyone.
Click each item as you confirm it. All four need to be true before your Verticals will work correctly in a content workflow.
At least one Vertical exists with a Name and a Description
Every Description is specific enough to describe a real person in a real industry situation, not a generic category
Descriptions are written in third person so they read correctly inside AI prompts
Each Vertical is attached to at least one Persona in your system