Im having quite a hard time understanding the difference between having a customer profile and a buyer persona. I think to some extent i understand what the 2 are (one outlines who your ideal customer is whether its a company or individuals and the other outlines who your buyers are, right? please correct me if i am wrong) but im worried that the information i have for a customer profile and that of a buyer persona are basically the same. Its just that the customer profile isnt as detailed as the buyer persona but they are basically the same. Should i be worried?
Buyer persona is for prospects. so it is your fictional profile about how will your perfect customer look like. you have only one or 2 of it. Customer profile is for existing customers already. people who had interactions with your business. so you collect their data and put it in one profile. and you have it for each customer.
The customer profile should focus on the types of customers that are ideal for you. For example: manufacturing businesses in North America with annual revenues between $100 Million-$500 Million. This could be a bit more detailed as needed.
Your buyer persona should be the individuals that you would need to engage with for them to become your customers. This might be from a marketing, sales, or even customer service perspective. Using the profile from above, a buyer persona might be: Senior Engineer at a North American Manufacturer that has buying power and involved in new product development.
You might have multiple personas at one customer profile and typically the more complex the sale, the more personas you would need to identify. You should still have 1 primary persona and probably not more than 8-10 or it will become too difficult to produce content/assets/information that is specific enough to each persona.