Apart from being a complex and time-consuming task, lead generation is a process that requires several A/B tests. The business landscape is continuously evolving, and the prospects are gradually adapting to it. This 2022, you must make sure that your campaign is fully adapted to address your online audience’s needs and behaviors. Therefore, you need a comprehensive ideal customer profile and buyer persona to create a personalized approach with your marketing strategy.
Ideal Customer Profile and Buyer Persona
Though some people are using these terms interchangeably, they are different. They are unique terms that refer to distinct concepts. If you want your lead generation, marketing, and sales campaign to succeed, you will need both of them. Generally, ICP and buyer persona are related to prospecting, which is not easy to do even if your marketing team has a clear plan. If you don’t have a clear insight into your customers, you will not provide a clear guideline to your sales and marketing people.
What is an Ideal Customer Profile?
When coming across a buyer persona template and ideal customer profile, it is relatively typical for anyone to experience confusion. These terms describe your customers and can be used for the marketing and lead generation process. Nonetheless, they differ when it comes to their true purpose. ICP serves as a filter for your lead generation activities; this will serve as the start of capturing the leads and bringing them into your sales funnel. For B2B, it helps them determine the businesses that are a perfect fit for their business. It also helps in determining the key personality in the company. Other key elements that may be added in ICP would be the titles, industry, geography, and other key elements.
What is a Buyer Persona?
When learning how to create a buyer persona, you will need to thoroughly understand your customer and the types of people that will not be interested in your offering. Like ICP, buyer personas are related to your company’s problems, variety of services, and expertise in the industry. It is basically the analysis of your existing customers. Compared to ICP, it is not only restricted to lead generation but can be involved in all stages of the marketing process.
Nonetheless, don’t think BP and ICP will be fixed or permanent. Your business will grow, and eventually, you will gain new clients. Perhaps you will also launch a new service or product that targets a whole new demographics. You will discover different factors in ICP and BP that must be changed over time. There may also be a time that you will realize that it can be difficult to capture and convert some types of your client. Never hesitate to update these two factors to refine your lead generation and marketing strategy.
What Elements Should Be Added to Your ICP?
Marketers will often separate their ICP elements into two categories. The first category includes elements that pertain to the problems of your customers that you can solve. The second category pertains to the titles that could probably be the decision-makers. ICP is used for various campaigns of the company. Here are some elements if you are planning to develop a detailed ICP. Some of these elements can also be found in the buyer persona template.
Company
These are basically for the B2B companies. It describes the type of companies that you must target. Here are some elements found here.
- The Industry- The name of the industry can vary depending on the nature of the business. Moreover, do not expect that companies will fall under one industry. For instance, your target could be a software developing company. Therefore, you can also find your target audience in software business services, internet, IT, mobile development companies, etc. You should be very detailed in your description, especially if this will become a vital factor for your lead generation.
- Revenue- In all elements present in ICP and buyer persona, it can be the easiest factor to determine. Be sure to add the total and relative sizing of the business.
- Employees- Adding the number of employees is standard when developing your ICP. It can be essential in determining the size of the company.
- Region- Depending on your service area or area of operation, you could be very particular here. Geo-targeted lead generation needs to focus more on your area of concern.
Human
Here, you will have to determine the decision-maker in the company. It is essential when developing a script for your cold calling. Understand that these people’s time is precious, and knowing enough information about them can speed up the process. Moreover, it will help you avoid wasting your time on the gatekeepers who will not provide you with the results you need. The key people are also essential when creating buyer persona. You could be talking to a receptionist who may not be able to connect you to the company’s decision-makers.
Service
Several companies will ignore this factor, but we still think this is essential when developing your ideal customer profile. For instance, the software development company you are targeting could offer various extra services. It could be a large company that has different decision-makers. You probably want to target them separately since they will react differently to your lead generation campaign or sales process.
Optional Elements
Depending on how customized you want your outreach could be or if you’re going to be very specific and narrow your lead targets, consider adding a few of these elements in your ICP.
- Client of Possible Leads
- Trigger Events (we’ve talked about this in the cold calling article)
- Role in the Business and their Years in the Company
- Affiliates
- Size of their Building
- Participants on their Events
What Elements Should Be Included in Your Buyer Persona Template?
You will encounter numerous articles or blog posts online telling you to add as much information as possible when creating buyer persona. However, not all kinds of information will be useful, especially for a B2B. the personal data on your lead (for instance, name of family members, pets, household income) are not essential in BP. You may have to focus more on the professional background of your leads. The best method is to gather the information related to your company’s sales process. Here are some elements that you should add.
Leads and Job Titles
Your buyer persona needs to have a name. Furthermore, you should include their job title to make things more organized. If you are giving it a name, it is preferable to use a unisex name. It will streamline the process, and you will no longer have to create a separate profile for your male and female leads. Adding titles is necessary for a business that works predominantly with professionals and those with academic degrees. You can add their title after their name.
Personality
Personality is important when developing your buyer persona template. It helps you know the best way to approach them. Remember that leads will become more responsive if your sales pitch resonates with them. Be sure to add these factors to your BP.
- Demographics- You can add the generation or the age of your target audience. Some may choose to add gender. Other factors that you may find essential are nationality, ethnicity, and religious affiliations.
- Beliefs and Values- Perhaps your clients have something that they dislike about their job. They may also have specific prejudice over specific values, beliefs, or practices related to your business operation.
- Awareness- On a scale of 1-10 (with one being completely ignorant about your company), how aware are your buyers about your company? Some marketers think that it is a superficial factor and may not offer any benefits to the company’s marketing process. However, by being aware of this, you will know how to approach the lead. You will understand the information that they need to know about your company.
- Professional Background- Anything related to the person’s profession should be added. For instance, you need to add their strength and weakness, education background, certificate, course, and years in the business.
- Psychological Trait- Creating buyer persona is not for counseling; it is not essential to be deep in your psychological analysis. Some traits you should add would be the strengths that help them excel in their work or the traits they usually exhibit.
Working Environment
- The Team- The SWOT (Strength, Weakness, Opportunity, and Threats) of the team. Determine which member of the team will be more beneficial to your company.
- Technology- This should be added if the technology and IT infrastructure they are using are relevant to your company.
- Job Features- Know the role of your buyer persona. You should also create a frame that determines their work.
- Pain Points- This factor pertains to their source of negative emotion. You need to be aware of what disappoints, frustrates, or scares them the most. Identify how your service or product can eliminate those negative feelings.
- Objectives and Challenges- In this element, you will need to add all the critical KPIs to track your leads and buyers. It will be easier for you to lead the buyers into your sales funnel by determining this.
Buying Behavior
- Obstacles- You need to know any possible obstacles that you will encounter when delivering the solution to your audience. It could be your competitors, reluctance, lack of awareness, or poor budget.
- Objections- It is different from obstacles. Objections pertain to any conditioned response due to disengagement, busyness, and distractions.
- FAQ- Add a Frequently Asked Question in your buyer persona template.
- Buyer Journey- Determine every step and route the buyer will take to complete the cycle.
- Criteria of Decision- You need to determine the possible reasons that helped the new and existing customers reach their decision.
- Post-Purchase- This will include the process to nurture your relationship with your buyers.
Understand that you are not required to use all the elements listed here to develop a buyer persona template. You should also visit this regularly and implement changes whenever necessary.
Once this is done, you can now apply your buyer persona and ICP to your lead generation, content marketing, and sales process. Implement ICP at the start of your lead generation campaign and BP on every step of your marketing journey.