AI Sales

3 steps to create detailed ICPs and buyer personas with AI

lemlist team
LAST UPDATED
April 24, 2024
READING TIME
7 min.

93% of companies that exceed lead and revenue goals segment their database by buyer persona.

Many businesses struggle to understand their target audience, leading to missed opportunities and ineffective marketing strategies.

Close the gap between your business and clients by creating accurate buyer personas that resonate with your customers. You can get your ideal client profile without spending hours on research and analytics by using lemlist’s AI. 

In this article, we will reveal 3 steps to creating detailed buyer personas with the help of AI.

Try lemlist's free Buyer Persona Generator

Type in your business email address so lemlist can fetch your business description and value proposition. 

To get better results, edit the description and add more details. 

Then, lemlist will show you 3 client profiles that fit your business proposition.

Step 1: Use AI to identify your ideal companies

First, identify the types of companies that would get the most value from your product or service.

If you already have clients, check your client list and highlight the ones that:

  • Bring you the most profit
  • Gain the most value from you
  • Have been with you the longest

Essentially, these are your best clients, and you want more of them!

Is your client or leads list a bit messy? You can clean it for free and enrich your leads with lemlist’s free G-Sheet addon.

If you don’t have clients yet, identify potential ones and reach out to them on LinkedIn.

Network in order to find out:

  • The struggles they might be facing
  • Who is the end-user and who is the decision-maker
  • If it makes sense for them to proceed with a solution like yours

To save time on your LinkedIn outreach, use an AI-powered cold outreach automation tool. They create personalized outreach sequences for you, which drive more replies in less time.

Here’s how to set that up using lemlist’s AI sequence generator. If you don’t already have a lemlist account you can sign up here, for free.

To use it:

  1. Create a new campaign in the lemlist app, and choose “Artificial intelligence” under the Sequence tab.

2. Fill in the requested data (value proposition, intent, tone, target audience, etc.). This trains the AI to use the best sequence and copy to reach out to your prospects on LinkedIn.

3. Click “generate sequence.”

lemlist ai sequence generator

With this tool, you can network 2x faster and get replies that help you understand your target audience firsthand. For more help networking, use our guide to networking email campaigns.

To learn everything you need to know about creating personalized outreach sequences with AI, take a look at our 3-step guide to outreach with AI.

Step 2: Gather information about your ideal clients with AI

Once you’ve got your list of best clients (or best potential clients), gather information about them.

Here’s some of the information you’ll need:

-> Are they serving other businesses (B2B) or consumers (B2C)?

→ What industry are they in?

→ Who are they trying to reach?

→ What's their unique selling point?

You can get an automated enriched company list with the above information using n8n and ChatGPT. Here’s how:

Make a spreadsheet of your list of companies and their market, industry, target audience, and value proposition in Google Sheets. It should look something like this. 👇

Next, use our n8n template. Here’s how:

  1. Sign-up to n8n.io and create a new workflow.
  2. Go to https://app.n8n.io/workflows/1862 and click on “Copy Workflow.”
  3. In your blank workflow, paste the workflow.
  4. This is what it should look like. 👇

5. Authenticate yourself in Google Sheets nodes.

  • double click on the node
  • select 0auth2
  • click on “create new credential”
  • Sign in with your Google Account

6. Connect your sheet to the workflow.

  • copy-paste the URL of your sheet into the 2 Google Sheets nodes 👇

7. In your Google Sheet, make sure your columns are named exactly like this: Domain, Market, Industry, Target Audience, Value Proposition.

8. In the OpenAI node, add your API Key.

Sign up for an account with OpenAI and obtain an API key for ChatGPT.‍ To get the API key, follow these steps:

  • click on your name in the top-right corner
  • click on view API Keys
  • create new secret key
  • copy the key

9. Run the workflow, and voila! You’ll have an enriched list that looks like this. 👇

To learn more about following this process with Make.com or n8n, check out this guide to enriching company lists with chatGPT.

Step 3: Create detailed buyer persona profiles with AI

Once you have your enriched list of companies, think about the actual person from your target companies who will make the decision to purchase your product.

This is the buyer persona.

Use ChatGPT to generate it for you.

Here’s a prompt you can use to get detailed buyer personas and boost your outreach personalization:

You're a senior consultant with 20+ years of experience.

You're a master at creating the most unique and unusual growth strategies. You've helped the fastest-growing companies in the world skyrocket their growth and customer acquisition.

Your tone of voice should be actionable, no-fluff, approachable, casual, and storyteller.

Generate 5 detailed buyer personas for an individual who would be interested in [DESCRIPTION OF YOUR PRODUCT OR SERVICE].

The buyer personas should include the following information:

1. Name: (insert the name of the persona)

2. Position: (insert position or role of the persona)

3. Professional background: (describe the professional background, experience, or expertise of the persona)

4. Goals and objectives: (specify the goals and objectives that the persona wants to achieve in their professional life)

5. How they heard about [YOUR COMPANY NAME]: (indicate the channels or sources through which the persona became aware of your company)

6. Path to purchase: (describe the typical journey or steps the persona takes when considering and making a purchase related to your product or service)

7. Potential barriers: (identify the factors or concerns that might hold the persona back from buying your product or service)

Remember to provide sufficient detail and context to ensure the generated personas are accurate and useful. Please present the buyer personas in the form of a table.

We ran this prompt for lemlist and got 5 detailed buyer personas. Here’s an example of one of them:

Once you have this information, you can use it to personalize your cold outreach to get more replies and build more meaningful relationships.

To use apply your buyer personas and level-up your personalization, check out this list of 9 AI tools that automate email personalization.

The key takeaways

Define your buyer personas to understand your audience's challenges and provide them with the right solution: yours.

This helps you:

→ drive revenue

→ shorten the sales cycle

→ close more deals

To define your ICPs and buyer personas with AI:

→ network with your ideal companies using an AI-automated outreach tool like lemlist

→ enrich your company list with tools like ChatGPT and lemlist's free G-sheet addon

→ generate detailed buyer personas with the ICP genator

P.S. If you want the ultimate guide to defining your B2B target audience, download this free eBook, which comes with a template that’s already helped generate 20k+ customers.

lemlist team
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G2 Rating
Price
Best for
Standout feature
Con
4.9
star
star
star
star
star
$30/mo
$75/mo
$2,999/mo
Large, distributed sales teams
AI evaluation precision, gamified KPIs
Lack of tracking system
4.6
star
star
star
star
star-half
Not publicly available
Sales operations and finance teams
Powerful configurability
Limited training resources and complex to navigate
4.4
star
star
star
star
star-half
Not publicly available
Mid-market and enterprise businesses
Comprehensive incentive management
Potentially high cost and steep learning curve
4.7
star
star
star
star
star-half
$15/user/mo
$40/user/mo
Enterprise: custom price
Complex sales structures and businesses of all sizes
Complex sales structures and businesses of all sizes
Steep learning curve
4.6
star
star
star
star
star-half
Not publicly available
Collaborative teams
Connected planning
Complexity and steep learning curve
4.6
star
star
star
star
star-half
Not publicly available
Companies with complex sales structures
Complex incentive compensation management (ICM) with high efficiency and accuracy
Complexity for smaller teams and potentially high costs
4.7
star
star
star
star
star-half
Not publicly available
Companies who want to automate commission calculations and payouts
Simplicity and ease of use
Lack of features like redirection
4.7
star
star
star
star
star-half
$30/user/mo
$35/user/mo
Custom: upon request
Businesses that need a comprehensive and user-friendly sales compensation management software
Ease of use and adoption
Lack of ability to configure the product based on user needs
4.8
star
star
star
star
star-half
Not publicly available
Companies with modern sales culture and businesses who want real-time insights
A built-in dispute management and real-time visibility
Users say it works slowly, customer support is slow
4.9
star
star
star
star
star
$30/user/mo
$50/user/mo
Smaller sales teams
Powerful automation
Lesser user base and average user interface
4.7
star
star
star
star
star-half
Not publicly available
Companies with scalable needs
Automated Commission Calculations
Lack of filtering by date, no mobile app
ERP vs. CRM
ERP
CRM
Summary
Backbone of a business's internal operations.
Backbone of customer-centric interactions and operations.
Goal
To centralize and streamline core business processes in a company.
To increase customer experience, satisfaction and loyalty, and boost sales.
Focus
Internal operations and processes across departments (finance, accounting, inventory, supply chain, HR, and sales).
All interactions with leads and customers.
Manages
Internal business data like financial data, inventory levels, production details, supply chain, HR info.
All customer data like contact info, purchase history, communication history, customer preferences and more.
Users
Finance, accounting, operations, supply chain, and HR departments.
Customer-facing teams like sales, marketing, and customer service.
Benefits
Streamlines operations, improves data accuracy, enhances decision-making, boosts collaboration, increases productivity.
Improves customer relationships, increases sales, strengthens customer service, personalizes marketing campaigns, provides insights.
Price
$150 per user per year on average.
$10 to $30 per user per month on average.
PRM Tool
Rating
Feature
Pro
Con
Mobile App
Integrations
Free Plan
Pricing
4.65
star
star
star
star
star-half
Org-wide alignment
User-friendly layout and database
Suboptimal as a personal CRM
square-check
Lack of tracking system
square-check
Team: $20/month
Business: $45/month
4.7
star
star
star
star
star-half
Social Media Integration
Easy contact data collection
No marketing/sales features
square-check
Lack of tracking system
square-xmark
7-day trial
$12/month
4.75
star
star
star
star
star-half
Block Functions
High customization capability
Not a dedicated CRM
square-check
Limited
square-check
Plus: €7.50/month
Business: €14/month
N/A
Open-source
Open-source flexibility
Requires extensive manual input
square-xmark
Limited
square-check
Self-hosted
$9/month or
$90/year
3.1
star
star
star
Simple iOS app
Ideal for non-tech-savvy users
iPhone only
square-check
iOS only
Limited
square-xmark
1-month trial
$1.49/month or
$14.99/month
3.6
star
star
star
star-half
Smart Contact Management
Feature-rich and flexible
Reported bugs
square-check
Rich
square-xmark
7-day trial
Premium: $13.99/month
Teams: $17.99/month
4.4
star
star
star
star
star-half
Customizable Interface
Customizable for teamwork
Pricey for personal use
square-check
Rich
square-xmark
Standard: $24/member
Premium: $39/member
4.7
star
star
star
star
star-half
Integrated Calling
Integrated Calling
Too sales-oriented & pricey
square-check
Rich
square-xmark
14-day trial
Startup: $59/user/month
Professional: $329/user/month
4.8
star
star
star
star
star
Business Card Scanning
Business Card Scanning
Mobile only
square-check
Limited
square-check
$9.99/month
4.45
star
star
star
star
star-half
160+ app integrations
Comprehensive integrations
No free app version
square-check
Rich
square-xmark
14-day trial
$29.90/month or
$24.90/month (billed annually)
Capterra Rating
Free Trial
Free Plan
Starting Price (excluding the free plan)
Maximum Price (for the most expensive plan)
Best for
4.5
star
star
star
star
star-half
square-check
14-day
square-check
€15/month/seat billed annually
€792/month/3 seats billed annually + €45/month for each extra seat
Versatility and free plan
4.2
star
star
star
star
square-check
30-day
square-xmark
But it offers reduced price to authorised nonprofit organisations
€25/user/month
€500/user/month billed annually (includes Einstein AI)
Best overall operational CRM
4.3
star
star
star
star
star-half
square-xmark
square-check
Limited to 3 users
Comprehensive incentive management
€52/user/month billed annually
Small-medium businesses and automation
4.5
star
star
star
star
star-half
square-check
14-day
square-xmark
€14/seat/month billed annually
€99/seat/month billed annually
Sales teams and ease of use
4.1
star
star
star
star
square-xmark
square-check
Limited 10 users
$9.99/user/month billed annually
$64.99/user/month billed annually
Free plan for very small teams up to 10
CRM goal
Increase the sales conversion rate for qualified leads from marketing automation campaigns by 10% in the next 6 months.
SMART Breakdown
1. Specific: It targets a specific area (conversion rate) for a defined segment (qualified leads from marketing automation).
2. Measurable: The desired increase (10%) is a clear metric, and the timeframe (6 months) allows for progress tracking.
3. Achievable: A 10% increase is possible based on historical data and potential improvements.
4. Relevant: Boosting sales from marketing efforts aligns with overall business objectives.
5. Time-bound: The 6-month timeframe creates urgency and a clear target date.
Actions
Step 1: Refine lead qualification criteria to ensure high-quality leads are nurtured through marketing automation.
Step 2: Personalize marketing automation campaigns based on lead demographics, interests, and behavior.
Step 3: Develop targeted landing pages with clear calls to action for qualified leads.
Step 4: Implement lead scoring to prioritize high-potential leads for sales follow-up.
Step 5: Track and analyze campaign performance to identify areas for optimization.
Outcomes
Increased sales and revenue
Improved marketing automation ROI
Marketing and sales alignment
Data-driven marketing optimization
Table
CDP Software
CRM Software
Approach
Data-centric
Customer-centric
Focus
Interactions across various channels and touchpoints, both online and offline.
Sales, marketing, and customer service interactions.
Functionality
Automatically collects, organizes, tags, and makes data available in real-time.
Helps businesses track customer interactions, sales pipelines, prospects, and service requests.
Goals
Personalized customer experiences across all channels.
Better customer relationships, streamlined processes, and improved profitability.
Benefits
Data integration, management, and accessibility, allowing for detailed analysis and segmentation.
Better communication within teams and with customers by organizing information about customer interactions and history.
Data Handling
Handles both identified and anonymous data, stitches together various data points.
Deals primarily with identified customer data.
Use Cases
Personalized marketing campaigns, targeted advertising, content customization across multiple channels.
Managing campaigns and leads, enhancing customer service, providing better customer support, increasing customer satisfaction and loyalty.
Examples
Insider, Bloomreach, Salesforce Marketing Cloud CDP
HubSpot, Salesforce Sales Cloud Lightning Professional, and Zoho CRM
CRM
Free plan
Best feature
Best for
Con
1. HubSpot CRM
square-check
Sales automation
Sales teams
Up to 1,000 contacts
2. Insightly
square-check
Custom fields
Basic needs
Not enough info about the free plan
3. Agile CRM
square-check
Deal and sales pipeline tracking
Small teams
Up to 10 users
4. Zoho CRM
square-check
Lead and contact management
Businesses of all sizes
Limited to 3 users
5. ClickUp
square-check
Unlimited tasks and unlimited members
Personal use
Up to 100MB storage
6. EngageBay
square-check
Live chat
Small and midsize enterprises
Up to 1,000 branded emails per month
7. Bitrix24
square-check
Unlimited users and 5 scrum teams
Big teams
Up to 5GB of cloud storage
8. FreshSales
square-check
Easy to use and simple setup
Beginners
Up to 3 users
9. Mailchimp
square-check
Very beginner friendly
Marketing teams
Send up to 500 branded emails per month
Type of Affiliate Marketing
Unattached
Related
Involved
Format
Paid advertising
Social media or YouTube channels
Dedicated website or blog
Focus
Quick income
Your niche
Your audience
Engagement with your audience
square-xmark
square-check
square-check
square-check
square-check
Very close connection with your audience
Pro
Little effort
Higher credibility thanks to your niche
Long-lasting and scalable
Con
Paid ads cost a lot
Potential for bias since you don’t use the thing you promote
Require time, effort, and dedication

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