LRN · PERSONAS & ICP/REV. 2026-06
Sheet— 01 / 10 —P-ICP
001 ·

Ideal customer profile, buyer personas, buying committees, and the jobs they hire you to do.

Define the who, precisely.

Here is the RGM personas & ICP stack — the discipline of defining exactly who you sell to. Ideal customer profiles, buyer personas built from real research, buying committees, and jobs-to-be-done. Define the who here, then segment and activate it in the Audience hub. Start with a pillar, explore the periodic table, or filter the index.

0Persona profiles
0Methods, mapped
0Method families
0Made-up avatars

How to read this stack: a persona invented in a workshop is a liability; one built from research is an asset. Ground every profile in real buyer research and first-party data, and size the ICP with the TAM/SAM/SOM tool.

000
At a glanceQuick answers

The short answers.

Persona or ICP?Both

ICP picks the accounts; personas pick the people in them.

Define ICP how?Fit + firmographics + intent

Start from your best current customers.

Persona from?Research, not guesses

Interview real buyers; map jobs-to-be-done.

Who decides in B2B?A committee of 6+

Map every role and their job-to-be-done.

What do buyers want?The job, not the demo

People hire a product to make progress.

Segment & activate?See the Audience hub

Define the who here; target it there.

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Load-bearing methodsSheet — 02 / 10

Six methods hold the roof.

Start here. Defining a buyer is a sequence: profile the ideal account, map the committee, build personas from research, and ground it in owned data. Learn these six and the rest follow.
Start here
  1. F-01Account-based marketingConcentrate on the accounts worth selling to.
  2. F-02Account tieringRank the ICP by value so effort follows worth.
  3. F-03Buyer personasThe people who research, decide and use.
  4. F-04Research methodsBuild personas from interviews, not imagination.
  5. F-05Jobs-to-be-doneThe progress a buyer is trying to make.
  6. F-06Buying committeeEvery role in the B2B decision, mapped.
002
The methods indexSheet — 03 / 10

Every method, filed.

Look at the personas & ICP library by family. Filter by name or pick a family. Behind these methods sit 196 buyer-persona profiles; the marquee methods are below, and search opens the rest.

Showing 26 of 26 methods

No method matches that filter. Search the full library — it reads every page.

This is the curated index. The persona library profiles 196 roles — search the complete collection or jump to any family above.

003
The map of methodsSheet — 04 / 10

The periodic table of the buyer.

Hover or tap a method. Thirty ways to define who you sell to, grouped into six families — ICP & accounts, buyer personas, research, jobs & positioning, data & segments, and role profiles. Filter by family, or hit ★ Core for the ten that anchor most programs. Each tile links to its guide.
004
Why the buyer matters — 2026Sheet — 05 / 10

Why defining the buyer pays.

Tap a card. Value concentrates in the right accounts, and borrowed reach is fading — which is why defining and owning your buyer is worth the work. Each figure is sourced and linked to the method and the benchmarks compendium.
118%Value concentrates

Enterprise NRR

BenchmarkitABM →
Did you know? ↗
3:1ICP economics

Healthy LTV:CAC

Industry rule of thumbLTV:CAC tool →
Did you know? ↗
~$10BOwn the buyer

Meta hit from ATT

Meta guidance; ZenithFirst-party data →
Did you know? ↗
58.5%Borrowed reach fades

US zero-click searches

SparkToro / DatosBuyer personas →
Did you know? ↗
~20xTarget the persona

Flow vs campaign RPR

KlaviyoCustom audiences →
Did you know? ↗
18 moPayback by account

Median CAC payback

Benchmarkit / KeyBancAccount tiering →
Did you know? ↗
A persona built in a workshop is fiction. One built from research is a strategy.
— RGM analysis, 2026

Buyer-economics signals, 2026 — see the full sourced set in the RGM Benchmarks compendium.

005
RGM buyer-economics toolsSheet — 06 / 10

Size it and value it.

Use these. RGM ships free calculators for sizing the ICP's market and valuing each persona — TAM, LTV, CAC, payback — no signup. Put a number on the buyer before you spend on them.
RGM ToolTAM SAM SOM

Size the ICP's market.

 RGM ToolLTV:CAC Ratio

Whether an ICP's economics hold up.

 RGM ToolLTV Calculator

Lifetime value of a persona.

 RGM ToolCAC Calculator

Cost to acquire the ICP.

 RGM ToolCAC Payback

Months for an account to repay its cost.

 RGM ToolCustomer Lifetime

How long a persona stays.

 RGM ToolChurn Rate

The leak per persona.

 RGM ToolAOV Calculator

Order value by persona.

 RGM ToolBlended CAC

Cost per new ICP customer.

 RGM ToolAllowable CAC

The most an ICP is worth acquiring.

 RGM ToolMER Calculator

Blended efficiency across accounts.

 RGM ToolBudget Forecaster

Allocate spend across tiers.

Browse every calculator on the RGM tools floor, or start with the benchmarks compendium.

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MethodSheet — 07 / 10

How to define your buyer.

Five steps. Getting the buyer right makes every downstream decision easier. Here is the sequence from ICP to targeting.
  1. Define the ICP. Describe the company or customer worth selling to — firmographics, the problem you solve well, and intent. Start from your best current customers, not a wish list.
  2. Map the buying committee. In B2B a purchase involves six or more people — map each role, what they want, and who can block the deal.
  3. Build personas from research. Interview real buyers and map their jobs-to-be-done with real research methods, not an avatar named in a workshop.
  4. Ground it in first-party data. Validate and enrich personas with data you own, not third-party assumptions.
  5. Prioritize and target. Tier accounts and personas by value and intent, then segment and activate them across channels.
007
Go deeperSheet — 08 / 10

The deep guides.

Beyond the profile. Each method has a full guide, and the persona library goes deep: 196 role profiles, each mapped to pain points, jobs-to-be-done, the tools they use and how to market to them.
Deep guideBuying Committee Mapping

Every role in the B2B deal.

 Deep guideIntent Data

Which accounts are in-market now.

 Deep guideEthnographic Research

Watch buyers in context.

 Deep guideDiary Studies

Behavior over time, in their words.

 Deep guideCompetitive Intelligence

Learn the buyer from rivals.

 Deep guideFirst-Party Activation

Turn the buyer into an audience.

Need a specific role? The library profiles 196 buyers — from CMO and CFO to creative and channel roles. Search the persona library →

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The voices — top 12Sheet — 09 / 10

The voices — top 12.

Follow these. The people who shaped how marketers define, research and target the buyer — from positioning and segmentation to jobs-to-be-done. Each links to a profile.
01April DunfordPositioning & the ideal customer 02Philip KotlerTargeting & the buyer, defined 03Byron SharpCategory buyers over narrow targets 04Sean EllisThe PMF survey & must-have persona 05Lenny RachitskyPersonas & product audiences 06Andrew ChenUser segments & who to build for 07Mark RitsonSegmentation & targeting rigor 08Les BinetWho to reach, and how broadly 09Peep LajaBuyer research for conversion 10Rand FishkinAudience research & intent 11Neil PatelPersona-led content at scale 12Seth GodinThe smallest viable audience

Browse all marketing thought leaders →

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FAQSheet — 10 / 10

Buyer questions.

What is the difference between an ICP and a buyer persona?

An ideal customer profile describes the type of company or account worth selling to; a buyer persona describes the people inside it who research, decide, use and pay. The ICP picks the accounts, personas pick the humans in them.

How do I define an ideal customer profile?

Start from your best current customers and find what they share: firmographics, fit (the problem you solve well) and intent signals. Rank them with CLV tiers. The ICP is a filter for where to spend, not a wish list.

How do I build a buyer persona?

From research, not imagination. Interview real customers, map their jobs-to-be-done, pain points, tools and metrics, and validate against first-party data. A persona invented in a workshop is a liability.

What is a buying committee?

In B2B a purchase is rarely one person — a buying committee of six or more researches, champions, approves and blocks the deal. Mapping each role is central to account-based marketing.

What is jobs-to-be-done?

Jobs-to-be-done describes the progress a customer is trying to make, rather than their demographics. People hire a product to do a job; understanding that job predicts behavior better than who they are on paper.

How is this different from the Audience hub?

Personas & ICP is about defining who your buyer is through research; the Audience hub is about segmenting and activating that audience across channels. Define the who here, then segment and target it there.

Sources & provenance

  1. Buyer-economics signals (net revenue retention, LTV:CAC, ATT revenue impact, zero-click share, email flow revenue, CAC payback) are drawn from the RGM 2026 Benchmarks compendium, which sources each figure to Benchmarkit, Zenith, SparkToro, Klaviyo and KeyBanc.
  2. This hub curates persona, ICP and research methods that live across the Audience, Strategy and Concepts stacks; every tile links to its full guide.
  3. Persona-profile count — RGM analysis, June 2026; the persona library is a live total from the deployed tree.