Ideal Customer Profiles and Buyer Personas—How Are They Different?

There are common misconceptions about the difference between ideal customer profiles and buyer personas, and understandably so. They have similarities in that they both include a set of guidelines your teams can use to qualify leads. Where you’ll see a difference is how and when you use them. Do you need both an ideal customer profile and buyer personas? Let’s break it down and figure out where to start.

什么是理想的客户资料？

一个理想的客户资料（ICP）通常称为理想的买家资料，它为您的组织所解决的问题定义了理想的客户。这是一家虚构的公司，具有所有素质，使它们最bob全站app适合您提供的解决方案。如果您的组织使用ABM或account-based marketing, allowing you to focus on selling to targeted accounts that fit your organization. If done correctly, an ICP can help define the problems you're solving for, align your product/service capabilities with customers’ needs, and assist in laying out your future road map for product/service updates and changes.

Why not send every lead to sales?有些线索可能不合适，因此必须确定谁可以从您那里购买，谁不能购买。That way your sales reps aren't spending too much time on leads that most likely won't close a deal with them. You can use your ICP to define what a good fit looks like. Consider these characteristics to identify the perfect fit:

• Budget / Revenue / Company Size- 客户必须为您的产品或服务付费的最低成本门槛是什么？
• Industry- 您是否有特定的垂直领域？有没有与之合作的垂直领域？
• Geography- 您不卖给特定地区吗？
• Legality- are their legal reasons that limit your potential customer base, maybe age, location, or government restrictions?
• Product or Service Limitations- 您是否与客户有服务水平协议（SLA）以满足一定的响应时间？如果有人需要更快地回复，您是否可以保证您能够满足该需求？

这是一个非竭尽全力的列表，但是当试图识别理想客户的外观时，这是一个很好的起点。这些是潜在客户必须能够从您那里购买的品质。如果它们不符合所有这些预定义的特征，则可以取消它们的资格，并确保您的销售代表将时间与适合的潜在客户在一起。

ICP专注于帐户的拟合度，不要太深入您将遇到的个人。一旦确定了适合您的ICP的帐户，您就想开始考虑与谁在与谁交谈以及负责实际进行购买的人。确保你的销售代表装备和交谈swer questions for the different individuals they may encounter. Accounts that fit your ICP are made up of these individuals who hold different titles, product/service knowledge, and levels of experience. We will further define these individuals using buyer personas.

What is a Buyer Persona?

一个buyer persona是您客户面临的人口统计学，目标，激励因素和挑战的半虚构，广义代表。买方角色为您的组织提供结构和背景。您可以使用买方角色来帮助营销映射和策划内容，以及其他团队（例如销售和支持），并分配时间和资源。

Check out your buyer persona in your HubSpot account:

一家bob全站app公司可能具有两个到五个角色。在尝试确定您组织应该拥有的买方角色的数量时，为您的团队与之交流的每个职位创建一个新角色是一个普遍的错误。与其具有特定于职位的角色，例如营销经理Mary或Sales Rep Sam，您想考虑个人面临的不同挑战，并创造了像最近的毕业生Rachel，Tech Heavy Tom或Start Up Steph这样的角色。有了这些角色，我们将重点从其头衔中脱颖而出，可以专注于他们遇到的日常挑战以及您的产品/服务可以提供的解决这些挑战的解决方案。当您将重点转移到要解决的挑战上时，您可以考虑这些角色如何消耗信息并定义他们理想的购买过程的外观。您的团队能够根据您的买方角色信息来调整他们与潜在客户的交流方式。

买方角色基于市场研究和有关您现有客户的真实数据。您在内部也有很多有关购买者的见解。当想要定义您的买家角色时，您可以与某些人交谈：

• 您的客户：任何已经为您指定要成为非常合适的产品或服务付费的人都可以让您深入了解有效的方法。拿起电话，发送调查，或者让他们加入您的办公室，参加焦点小组，以确定他们的一些动机，他们每天面临的挑战以及产品或服务中最喜欢的方面。还要尝试与不完全合适的客户交谈，因为他们可以帮助您确定您的团队不应该定位的帐户特征以及原因。
• 面向客户的团队：采访内部电话的人，或每天与客户和潜在客户面对面。建立一个焦点小组，将来自不同团队的成员结合在一起，这些成员可以提供不同的观点，拥有销售代表和客户成功经理可以提供不同的见解。他们反复回答什么样的问题？他们看到的常见障碍会阻碍客户的体验吗？
• 您的CRM: use your contacts’ information to look for trends to better understand how your leads are accessing and consuming your content.

如果您正在寻找帮助您入门的准则，那么20 Buyer Persona Questions帮助识别您的受众。一旦决定了买家的角色，至关重要的是您在内部分享这一点以确保团队之间的一致性。对于那些是HubSpot用户的人，这就是您可以添加买家角色的方式进入工具。对于那些不使用HubSpot的人，将文档或PDF放在一起，以确保您的组织中的每个人都知道您要出售给谁，以及您要解决的挑战。

Do You Need Both an Ideal Customer Profile and Buyer Personas?

ICPs and buyer personas are different, but linked. You could have an ICP that has a few personas that your marketing team creates content for, and your sales team feels comfortable speaking to. As an example we can use Solar Boost, a B2B company that provides solar panel installations. Below, you can see their ICP and the buyer personas that they have defined:

Defining both your ICP and buyer personas can help one another. You want to ensure that your ICP is advising your org on accounts they should be targeting by defining the qualities that are needed, and your buyer personas inform your teams as to the kinds of individuals they are creating content for, prospecting, and the types of questions they should be prepared to field.

您想在销售周期开始时使用ICP，以便在合格的潜在客户时提供帮助。您的销售代表不值得花时间在不会关闭的潜在客户上，因为它们不能 - 由于规模，收入或其他预定的因素。如果您可以在该关系的前端使用ICP，则可以帮助您的销售代表确定合适的帐户的优先级。然后，您可以使用买方角色来确定如何出售给个人。他们面临着什么挑战？他们如何消费内容？ICPS定义了目标，而买方角色则列出了如何与个人进行最佳沟通。

Once you’ve defined your ICP and your buyer personas, you’re off to a great start! It’s important to recognize that nothing is permanent and like your business, it’s okay for these definitions to grow and change as you learn more about your buyer. Set a reminder to update and revise these definitions yearly, then update your teams internally with any changes that were made. It’s important to keep everyone informed and on the same page. While your ICP and buyer personas are different, they work in tangent to ensure that sales is spending their time talking to quality leads, marketing is creating content for the right audience, and support is equipped to answer the questions that may come their way. Take the time needed to define your ICP and your buyer personas, because the effort you put in on the front-end can pay off in the long run when you are working with customers that are a great fit for what you have to offer!

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