The Difference Between Buyer Personas, User Journeys and Ideal Buyer Profiles
In the world of sales and marketing, understanding your buyers, decision-makers and influencers is key to making an imprint on their business. There are different ways to dive into their psyche to begin to formulate content, promotions and information around their needs, desires, and gaps in understanding. Everbrave uses three different tools to help us better understand your prospects and influencers:
- Buyer Personas
- User Journeys
- Ideal Client Profiles (ICP)
Each serves different purposes. Each is created using different methodologies. Let’s take a closer look.
Buyer personas: Painting a picture of your customers
Buyer Personas are composite representations of a company’s ideal customers or key decision-makers. They are based on market research, demographics and general observations by the sales team. Buyer Personas may include information such as role, age, gender, location, interests and behaviours. It also dives into the pain points, challenges, goals and hesitations.
The purpose of creating Buyer Personas is to better understand the needs, wants, triggers and motivations of a target audience. This provides a foundation for creating marketing & sales strategies and content specific to each persona.
Each company will have more than one buyer persona. For example, there could be different department heads who might use your product or service. The executive team might have final sign-off. Someone in IT might be responsible for making a recommendation. The office manager may be a gatekeeper. As you can imagine, each of these individuals have different needs and motivations.
The other thing to remember with Buyer Personas is that they are meant to paint a general picture of a customer archetype. It involves making some assumptions and generalizations. As you know, no two customers are exactly alike, but many do share common behaviours.
Here is an example of a Buyer Persona:
User journeys – mapping points of engagement & interaction
User Journeys describe the multiple ways that a customer may interact with a company, product or service. Often the User Journey starts with a Buyer Persona. The User Journey can map out a customer’s actions, thoughts and emotions at each point of contact. It can identify where they are coming from (eg. a website, Google ad, social media, referral). It can even reveal how they best interact with your brand. This helps a sales team to target and move users through the sales funnel.
User Journeys can be valuable when building a content strategy. That is because they ensure that the primary and secondary content being developed is answering the user’s pain points or hesitations in a way that will best engage with each user. At each stage of the buyer’s journey.
However, the purpose of creating User Journeys goes beyond simply identifying pain points. It reveals areas of improvement, and uncovers opportunities for selling, upselling and cross-selling.
Here is an example of a User Journey:
| Industry Segment | Persona | Motivation/Goals | Seeking/Needs | Engagement | CTA | Primary Content | Secondary Content | Found via | Relevant Keywords |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Market Housing | Investor Ian | • Finding a partner who can execute on the vision • Executing a successful project (on time and on budget) • Delivering a high ROI to investors • Finding a competent partner that limits the amount of micromanagment required. | • Proof of Past Similar Project Success • Partner who understands market housing and the ultimate goal of ROI for investors • High level understanding of construction processes and strong project management abilities • Credibility of team members • Ability for company to help with stakeholders including government, community, investors, trades, etc. | • Will have a conversation to build a relationship before making a buying decision • Will recommend [company] to investors based on level of confidence • Will be involved in the actual project, wants to know who he’ll work with | • Let’s plan together – Connect with a [company] team member today to review your upcoming project (CTA TBD) | • Case Studies •Testimonials • Team Page • [Company} Built Process • About Company Page • Previous Projects • Video • Services • Contract Methods | •Blogs – Construction Budgeting – Market Housing News – Project Management best practices – etc | • Word of mouth • Google Search – Construction Management Companies, construction companies, etc | •+construction +management •+multi family +constuction +companies •+constuction +companies (more research required) |
Ideal client profiles – where to focus your efforts
Ideal Client Profiles are detailed descriptions of the preferred type of customer and company wants to work with.
They are based on the company’s values, mission, business objectives, and revenue goals. Ideal Client Profiles include information such as the ideal customer’s optimal industry, number of employees, annual revenue, location and pain points. Ideal Client Profiles are informed by data, including how they engage with your business and get into your sales funnel (eg. digital ads, organic traffic, social media, website). The purpose of creating Ideal Client Profiles is to target, attract and retain high-quality clients that align with the company’s values, growth goals and product offering. It’s a two-way street. Ideal clients are typically those that will receive the greatest benefit by choosing your product or service: and hence, are often the easiest prospect types for the sales team to succeed with.
Using Data to Understand Customers
Each tool has its purpose in your sales and marketing strategies. Buyer Personas are used to understand the average customer. User Journeys are valuable for mapping customer interactions and improving the customer experience. While Ideal Client Profiles identify and target the optimum target audience for your business.
At Everbrave, we’re strong believers in data driven marketing and sales programs and find significant value in creating all three profiles for the benefit of marketing, sales and service teams alike. At every opportunity, these profiles should be refined and updated using the latest findings and data available within your organization for maximum effectiveness.
