The buyer persona describes the person you are trying to reach in a target account. Where the ideal customer profile answers the question “which company?”, the persona answers “which person, in that company?”. It helps you choose who a message goes to and phrase a question that falls within their scope.
What it contains
- Role and level: sales director, sales manager, founder, and whom the person reports to.
- Responsibilities: what the person is accountable for, such as how the team is organized or which tools it buys.
- Observable priorities: what they say publicly about their work, in their posts or in the job ads they sign.
- Situations that concern them: arriving in the role or being promoted into it, a hire in their team.
Several personas in one account
A decision rarely involves a single person. The one who decides is not always the one who will use the solution, nor the one who prepares the choice. To settle it, look at the signal: an SDR hire concerns the hiring manager first, while a funding round is more a matter for the founder. Write to the person whose scope covers the topic, even if they don’t hold the highest title.
Where it fits in signal-based prospecting
Use the persona to read people-related signals: an internal promotion, a new role, a post or a comment. A promotion into the role that matches your persona is a reason for contact; the same promotion into a role far from your topic is only context.
Common mistakes
- Describing personality traits that cannot be checked from the outside.
- Confusing the persona with a job title: two “Head of Sales” can have very different scopes.
- Writing to the most senior executive by default, whatever the topic.
- Keeping a single persona when the decision involves several people.
See also: Ideal customer profile (ICP), Target account, and Account-based selling.