Different from Personas

A buyer profile in the Buyer-Based marketing system is a coded number that lives within your program. That number is attached to a series of data points, outlined in the table below. In the Buyer-Based book, I spend a lot of time discussing how vital buyer profiling is, and it is, in fact, the most critical aspect of this type of marketing program. The goal for the Buyer-Based system is to direct a specific message to a particular person who works at a particular company and operates in a defined market.

(The Google Sheet is available here: Buyer Profile Example Sheet)

buyer profiles and personas

Primary Problem

The primary problem that the buyer has that you are trying to solve (or hopefully do solve). Only one primary problem can exist for each profile.

Secondary Problems

A secondary problem is all of the other stuff that is not considered primary.

Unique Selling Points

Unique selling points here are a little different than the USPs in the product section. These are the unique selling points of your entire organization, product, and services to this specific buyer.

Buyer Hesitations

Buyer Hesitations are my favorite category or topic in this whole book, and it also happens to be the most overlooked section of information in many marketing programs. Here, we try to figure out what hesitations any buyer has during any stage of their purchase process.

Key Features

The key features associated with the buyer are a little bit different than anything that you have written for the company or your products – we look at key features for the buyer based on what the buyer finds most important.

Key Benefits

Benefits are different from features, where a feature is something that your product has; a benefit is something that your product or service does for a person. I say this a few times in this book, and a coffee cup has a handle (feature) – the handle protects your hand from getting burnt (benefit).

Value Proposition

This program revolves around two main ideas – you target a buyer profile – with a value proposition. The goal of the whole program is to develop a clear understanding of who you are, who your targets are, and how to deliver the most effective message possible to them – and then test it. The value props we discuss creating on the buyer profile level are intended to be given, not sit as static content.

The buyer profile contains a ton of information and has the most connective tissue between the other components of the system. It is directly related to the market, the product, and the channel. It is also the pivot point for A/B testing and is indirectly linked to the competitor analysis, the company definition, the brand, and every other silo of information that you will have.