We don't expect you to read something that we couldn't be bothered to write, and that's why we don't use AI to create our blogs. The info, advice, and opinions you're about to enjoy are straight from the brains of Holly and Sophie, AKA The Good Eggs.
We may include affiliate links in our blogs. This allows us to make a little bit of ££ at no extra cost to you. We promise to only spend it on good stuff.
You might have heard of ideal customer profiles and buyer personas, but are you clear on the differences between them? If not, keep reading for a simple, jargon-free explanation.
When setting up a new business, it’s all too easy to hyperfocus on developing your offering and just skim over who’ll actually exchange their hard-earned ££ for it. However, your target audience is a key part of deciding what your products/services look like and how you’ll market them, so it deserves plenty of your attention.
That’s where ideal customer profiles and buyer personas enter the chat — they’re the key to understanding who your audience is and how they can benefit from your business.
But…
What are the differences between an ideal customer profile vs buyer personas? Do you need to have both? How will they help you create the tone of voice guidelines you’ll need to communicate effectively with your potential customers?
We’ll cover all that and more in this article, plus some resources that’ll make ICP, buyer persona, and tone of voice development easy breezy.
An ideal customer profile (ICP) describes your dream client. This ICP is essentially why you started your company in the first place, and the thought of successfully selling to them turns you into the human version of this emoji 😍. It’s the person/organisation that you can best serve (and will be most lucrative in the long term).
This fictional person/organisation has all the attributes needed to make them suitable customers to sell to because:
When you first went into business, it’s likely that you’ll have had at least a loose idea of who you can sell to… unless you’re like us and spent your first few months thinking WE WILL SELL TO EVERYONE. Creating your ICP firms up this profile so it’s clear in your mind whenever you’re creating products/services or digital marketing strategies for your business.
TBH, you can include anything you like in your ideal customer profile framework. However, the following three points will lay the foundation of who your dream client is, so make sure you include them. We’ve noted our Good Egg ICP in bold below as examples:
Good Egg works with solopreneurs and small businesses who are mindful of their budgets and want to get a lot of bang for their buck when they make investments. They care about who they spend their money with.
We want to work with fellow ‘Good Eggs’ doing work that benefits others. We don’t want to work with companies that aren’t aligned with our personal values.
Whilst based primarily in the UK, Good Egg is a fully remote company and we work with clients around the world.
Your ICP will probably change over time as your business evolves (Good Egg has changed loads since we first started in 2021, and our ICP has had to change with it). Make a note in your calendar to revisit yours every six months or so.
Buyer personas are fictional representations of your ideal customers that give you actionable customer insights to map out your products/services, marketing funnels, and sales efforts.
Buyer personas shouldn’t be based on specific industries or job roles — it’s more about looking at challenges, motivators, and goals that segments of your audience have in common.
That being said, you do want to consider the individual you’re targeting rather than an organisation as a whole, as this will help you personalise your marketing and sales messaging to make it more impactful for different buyer personas. This might be a mid-size business’s CEO, a larger corporation’s marketing manager, or a side hustle’s owner.
Companies typically have between three and five personas (Good Egg has four). Creating more than five personas means you’re at risk of being too general, and in targeting everyone, you’re likely to reach no one. Only having one buyer persona might narrow your market and reduce the opportunity for new leads (and nothing makes a business’ bank account sadder than a lack of leads).
Buyer personas can be created using a mix of market research and data from your current customer base. You want to pinpoint the following:
It’s a good idea to name your buyer personas in a catchy, memorable way that relates to their challenges and/or goals. Think along the lines of Scaling-solopreneur Simon and Time-strapped Tanya.
As we mentioned in the previous section, you’ll ideally review your ICP and buyer personas on a semi-regular basis to ensure they keep up with how your business grows. It’s also a very good idea to reassess them if your offerings and/or marketing messages aren’t getting the desired results.
Think of these semi-fictional representations as Tamagotchis that require regular care and attention to thrive.
If you have a team or regular freelancers who you work with, don’t forget to share updated versions with them so you’re all on the same page about who you’d give your last Rolo to work with/for (does that reference age me??).
TLDR: An ICP is an overview of your business’s ideal customer and buyer personas are the individuals that fit within that profile.
The sleuths among you might have spotted that ICP and buyer personas are doing very similar jobs. But, they do have some key differences that mostly come down to their application and level of detail.
Ideal customer profiles:
Whereas buyer personas:
This handy info (known by business boffs as critical market insights) will inform everything in your brand guidelines, from your colour palette to your tone of voice, as well as your products/services and the way you market them.
ICPs and accurate buyer personas will help you identify your target audience and align your products/services. They’ll also supercharge your marketing campaigns and give you the context needed to tailor the way your business speaks to its audience. You can even pinpoint which sub-section of that audience you should be talking to for your different offerings — and at every step of the customer journey.
Once you’ve bossed this, you’ll have some mega handy and valuable insight that’ll help you achieve your business goals of:
And who doesn’t want all of that good stuff for their business?
We’ve talked about what they are, how they differ, and why they’re important. But how the heck should you go about making ICP and buyer personas? Let’s dive in…
The first step is to create your ideal customer profile, which you can do in four speedy steps:
If you’re already up and running, take a look at your current client base. Look for any patterns among these customers’ demographics, then see if you can spot any patterns regarding which type of customer has been most satisfied and/or contains the most repeat purchases.
If you’re still in the initial stages of setting up your business, take a look at your competitors instead to see who they seem to be selling to (their social media followers lists are a good place to start).
Are you just setting up and don’t know how to start building your online presence? Good Egg can help with that!
Get to know your target audience as well as you possibly can by looking at market trends and competitor strategies. Can you figure out whether spending is going up or down among the group(s) you identified in step one? Can you identify any relevant trends in your industry (e.g., does AI and sustainability impact your industry)? Do your competitors seem committed to targeting this group, or are they shifting their attention elsewhere?
This stage is helpful because it lets you know if you’re on the right track with your initial ICP research and will help you see where you might need to refine your target customer base to ensure it’s a viable market to focus on (aka you aren’t on a wild goose chase).
Next, it’s time to start defining your ideal customer. Using the information you’ve gathered in steps one and two, note down which demographics seem to be the best to fit your business. Think about the industry, company size, and estimated revenue first, then add any extra deets that feel important to your target audience.
Once you’ve got your notes, compile them into a clear document that you can refer back to whenever you’re making plans for your business. If you’re a bigger company or outsource work, share this document with your marketing team, sales team, or anyone else communicating on your business’s behalf. Make a note in your calendar to take another look at it in six months. Repeat these steps if, at that point, you don’t think your ICP is still a good fit.
HubSpot has a great eBook and worksheet if you need a helping hand creating your ICP. Download the eBook on their website.
Ok, so that’s your ideal customer profile sorted! bravo! Next, let’s make your buyer personas using your ICP as a framework. There are just three steps to this process:
Look at your ICP and see if you can identify 3-5 segments within it. These groupings can be based on any recurring customer demographics you notice, such as company sizes, pain points, and job titles. Make note of ✨literally✨ every segment you spot because they’ll become the foundations of your individual buyer personas.
If your business already has customers, make a list of them and pick out any shared characteristics and behaviours. If you have good relationships with past or current clients, conduct customer interviews to ask them about their motivations, pain points, and goals to get a better understanding of how your business serves them.
You can also do some gentle market research on your social media platforms of choice. Instagram Stories are a great place to ask questions and gather data about your audience (we love doing this for Good Egg).
If your business is brand new and you can’t do this, skip this step and use the info you gathered from step one instead (you can revisit this once your business is up and running and has loads of lovely customers to analyse).
Once that’s done, it’s time to put together your 3-5 buyer persona profiles. Add all the information you gathered in steps one and two to the individual profiles. Each profile should be distinct from the others and have a memorable name (feel free to get as wacky as you like with these) so you keep them front-of-mind whilst creating your marketing or sales materials.
Our tone of voice workbook contains a handy template where you can create your buyer personas, and it also has everything you need to create your own tone of voice document in six easy steps.
Woohoo, you learned everything you need to know about ideal customer profiles vs buyer personas.
Your ICP and buyer personas tell you who you should be talking to, which is a dreamy foundation for figuring out how to position and market your products/services.
Now that you have these profiles in your branding toolkit, the next step is to create your tone of voice guidelines.
Every business needs a solid tone of voice because it’s one of the most effective ways of connecting with your perfect customers and making them want to spend their cash on what you’re selling. Take a peek at this blog to find out more about why you need tone of voice guidelines for your business.
If you’ve got no idea where to start with identifying your tone of voice, Good Egg can help in two ways:
📓 Good Egg’s DIY Tone of Voice Workbook — six easy steps to creating a dreamy tone of voice document, including a free tone of voice template. [Instant download coming soon]
🧠 ‘Done For You’ Tone of Voice Development — get your tone of voice guidelines created for you without having to figure it out for yourself. Find out more about this super-affordable service.
Got questions about creating your ICP, buyer personas, or tone of voice guidelines? We’re happy to hop on a free 15-minute intro call to give you a helping hand.
Subscribe to our fortnightly newsletter for support and solidarity from two feelings-led gals gently growing a biz.
