6 B2B ICP and Persona Frameworks

6 B2B ICP and Buyer Persona Frameworks for Targeting Complex Buying Committees

This is our catalog of B2B ICP and buyer persona frameworks for targeting complex buying committees. The Starr Conspiracy assembles six frameworks into a single targeting operating system, sequenced from account fit through segmentation, buying committee mapping, persona construction, intent activation, and message routing. Most content defines these terms. This catalog tells you what to do, in what order, and why, built from 25 years of B2B tech work.

Most teams treat ICP, persona, segmentation, and intent as separate exercises owned by separate people. That fragmentation is why SDRs hammer Tier 4 accounts because intent lit up, while Tier 1 sits untouched. It's why personas read like LinkedIn bios and never close deals. Treating these as separate exercises is like tuning the engine after you've already picked the race track. Every quarter you run without this stack, you train your org to trust bad targeting.

The frameworks below sequence the work. Each names its components, says when to reach for it, and credits the model it builds on. Use them as a stack, not a buffet. Skip the ICP Fit Scoring Model and your segmentation matrix sorts the wrong accounts into the wrong tiers. Skip the Buying Committee Map and your personas speak to a champion who can't sign the PO.

A quick note on language. We use demand states throughout, not funnel stages or buyer journey stages. The shift matters because real buying committees don't move in lockstep. Three people on the same committee can occupy three different demand states in the same week, and your targeting has to account for that.

The six frameworks, in the order a practitioner should apply them:

1. ICP Fit Scoring Model. Account-level qualification. Developed by The Starr Conspiracy from ABM fundamentals.
2. Firmographic and Technographic Segmentation Matrix. Tiering and prioritization. Developed by The Starr Conspiracy.
3. Buying Committee Map. Role and influence inventory per account. Developed by The Starr Conspiracy.
4. Jobs-to-be-Done Persona Framework. Motivation-led persona construction. Developed by Clayton Christensen and adapted by The Starr Conspiracy.
5. Intent Signal Activation Framework. Behavioral triggers for outreach. Developed by The Starr Conspiracy.
6. Segment-to-Message Routing Model. Operational handoff to campaigns. Developed by The Starr Conspiracy.

How to use this catalog.

• As a sequence: run frameworks 1 through 6 in order to build the targeting system from scratch.
• As a diagnostic: find the framework your pipeline problem maps to and fix that layer first.
• As an org alignment tool: assign clear ownership per framework across marketing, sales, and ops.

How the six work together: ICP scoring outputs feed the segmentation matrix. The matrix outputs feed the Buying Committee Map. Committee roles feed JTBD personas. Personas plus accounts feed the intent framework. Everything feeds the routing model. Fit, focus, and force-multiplication.

For a deeper view of how this stack connects to pipeline strategy, see our B2B demand generation services and our perspective on account-based marketing.

1. ICP Fit Scoring Model

A weighted scoring model that ranks accounts on firmographic, technographic, and behavioral fit against a defined ideal client profile. Developed by The Starr Conspiracy, built from ABM fundamentals and hardened across 25 years of B2B tech work in categories like HR tech, martech, security, and data. No score, no segmentation. This is the first gate in any account-based program, because every downstream framework inherits its assumptions from this one. The benefit: you can defend account selection to sales without flinching, because weights are explicit and reviewed quarterly with Sales Ops.

Components

• Industry vertical and sub-vertical fit, weighted
• Revenue band and employee count thresholds
• Tech stack signals: CRM, marketing automation platform (MAP), data platform presence
• Growth trajectory indicators: headcount change, funding events
• Disqualifiers: competitor incumbency, regulatory blockers
• Behavioral fit: prior engagement, content consumption depth

Inputs / outputs. Inputs: third-party firmographic data, internal CRM history, win/loss patterns. Output: a tiered account universe you can actually fund, staff, and defend.

Example scoring snippet. Vertical fit (weight 25): exact ICP vertical = 5, adjacent = 3, off = 0. MAP present (weight 15): HubSpot or Marketo = 5, other = 2, none = 0. Headcount growth >10% YoY (weight 10): yes = 5, flat = 2, decline = 0. Composite over 70 lands in Tier 1 candidacy.

What teams get wrong. They weight every variable equally, so "fit" becomes a vibe instead of a decision.

When to use it. Run the ICP Fit Scoring Model before any list build, account selection, or outbound sequence. It is the qualifying layer that makes everything downstream defensible.

2. Firmographic and Technographic Segmentation Matrix

A two-axis matrix that sorts qualified accounts into tiers based on firmographic value and technographic readiness (stack maturity for adoption). Developed by The Starr Conspiracy, influenced by firmographic patterns from providers like Cognism and Bombora. Inputs: ICP Fit Scoring Model outputs. Output: a prioritized account list with assigned investment levels per tier. So you can stop spending Tier 1 budget on Tier 4 accounts.

Components

• Tier 1: high value, high readiness, named-account ABM treatment
• Tier 2: high value, lower readiness, run category education until readiness flips
• Tier 3: moderate value, high readiness, programmatic ABM
• Tier 4: everything else, broad demand-gen only or disqualified
• Investment weighting per tier (budget, channel mix, sales involvement)
• Refresh cadence and re-tiering triggers

What teams get wrong. If your Tier 1 list is bigger than your SDR team can touch weekly, your matrix is lying.

When to use it. Build the matrix after ICP scoring, when you need to allocate finite budget and SDR capacity across a qualified account universe.

3. Buying Committee Map

A per-account inventory of the roles, influence weights, and demand-state positions of every individual involved in a purchase decision. Developed by The Starr Conspiracy, structured from committee-based selling research into a per-account artifact. This is the framework most teams skip, and it's why their personas don't convert. If you don't map procurement, you're not doing ABM, you're doing vibes.

Roles to inventory

• Economic buyer: signs the contract, owns the budget line
• Champion: drives internal advocacy, often the day-to-day user
• Technical evaluator: validates fit with existing stack
• End-user representative: speaks to adoption risk
• Procurement and legal: gates the close
• Detractor: the person most likely to kill the deal (often a peer with a competing initiative)
• Influence weight per role on a 5-point scale, account-specific
• Current demand state per individual

Inputs / outputs. Inputs: Tier 1 and late-stage Tier 2 accounts from the segmentation matrix. Output: a six-to-nine person committee artifact per account, each tagged with role, influence, and demand state.

When to use it. Build a Buying Committee Map for every Tier 1 account and every late-stage Tier 2 opportunity. Without it, your persona work is fiction.

4. Jobs-to-be-Done Persona Framework

A persona construction method that defines each role on the buying committee by the job they are trying to get done, not by demographics. Developed by Clayton Christensen and adapted by The Starr Conspiracy for B2B buying committees. Replaces the title-and-hobbies persona template that dominates most B2B marketing teams. The benefit: faster consensus inside the committee, because each role gets a distinct decision-criteria rank order tied to the job they're hired to do.

Components

• Functional job: the outcome the role is hired to produce
• Emotional job: how they want to feel doing it
• Social job: how they want to be perceived by peers and executives
• Current solution and its failure modes
• Trigger events that initiate active evaluation
• Decision criteria, ranked
• Disqualifiers: what makes them walk away

What teams get wrong. They write one persona per title and stop. JTBD demands one persona per role per demand state.

When to use it. Apply JTBD persona construction after the Buying Committee Map is built, so each persona is anchored to a real role on real accounts.

5. Intent Signal Activation Framework

A framework that converts third-party and first-party intent data into prioritized outreach triggers. Each trigger is mapped to a specific committee member and demand state. Developed by The Starr Conspiracy, informed by intent taxonomies from providers like Bombora and first-party signal patterns from platforms like metadata.io and business.adobe.com. Intent is not strategy. It's acceleration. Yes, you can start with intent. No, you shouldn't, because intent without ICP just speeds up outreach to the wrong accounts.

Components

• Signal source taxonomy: third-party intent, first-party web, product, review sites
• Signal strength scoring: volume, recency, topic specificity
• Account-to-individual signal attribution
• Demand-state inference per signal pattern
• Trigger thresholds for sales handoff
• Suppression rules: active opportunity, recent loss, competitor employee

Inputs / outputs. Inputs: Buying Committee Map plus live signal feeds. Output: a ranked daily trigger list routed to named sellers, with the inferred demand state attached.

When to use it. Activate this framework once ICP, segmentation, and committee mapping are stable. Intent data without the upstream frameworks just accelerates outreach to the wrong accounts.

6. Segment-to-Message Routing Model

The operational layer that routes each segment + persona + demand state to the right message, channel, and owner. Developed by The Starr Conspiracy as the binding layer between strategic segmentation and campaign execution. This is where the methodology stack either produces pipeline or dies in a spreadsheet. Message variant per cell is positioning, proof, and offer, not copy tweaks.

Components

• Segment-persona-demand-state matrix, the routing key
• Message variant per cell: positioning, proof, offer
• Channel assignment: paid, owned, sales-led, partner
• Owner assignment: marketing, SDR, AE, partner
• Frequency and sequencing rules
• Performance attribution back to the cell

Inputs / outputs. Inputs: outputs from all five upstream frameworks. Output cell: "Tier 1, CIO, Problem-aware" routes to "risk reduction proof" via sales-led email plus exec webinar invite, owned by AE with SDR support, two touches per week for three weeks.

When to use it. Implement the routing model when the first five frameworks are stable and you're ready to run integrated campaigns at scale.

Common objections

• "We already have personas." You have title cards. Run them through JTBD and the Buying Committee Map and see what survives.
• "Intent data will tell us where to focus." Intent without ICP is a faster way to burn budget on bad accounts.
• "This is too much process." Fragmented targeting is more expensive than disciplined sequencing. You're already paying for the chaos.

Implement the stack

We don't sell AI experiments. We build marketing systems that actually work. If your pipeline is noisy, this is how you clean it up without buying more tools. Start with Framework 1 this week, not next quarter. If you want this stack implemented, not admired, start with our B2B demand generation services.