Ideal Customer Profile: A Promising Marketing Tool

Defining your ideal customer profile (ICP) is one of the most important steps you can take towards creating a successful sales strategy.

What Is An Ideal Customer Profile?

It is the client or company that would benefit most from your product and/or service. They are most likely to buy and use your product, meaning your sales strategy should be targeted at these potential customers.

Why Is An Ideal Customer Profile Important?

Obviously, you want to focus on clients who already have a vested interest in your service. That said, defining your customer profile beforehand streamlines the sales process and reach prospects more quickly. This is especially important now because sales are happening faster than ever. You need to be aware of how your service can impact your prospect before even reaching out.

When defining your ideal customer profile, you will identify who you want to target with your sales strategy and why. These characteristics can help you define your profile:

• Geography: Where are you selling your products? Are you limited to a particular geographic area?
• Budget: What will customers be expected to pay for your services? What demographic can realistically be expected to pay for these services?
• Industry: What verticals do you work with, and which ones do you not intend to work with?
• Legality: Are there any legal restrictions that might prevent you from selling to a particular customer base?
• Other Service Limitations: This might include time frame, and you’ll need to ask yourself if you can deliver your products or services in a timeframe that meets customer needs.

To assess these characteristics, you can use accurate data and company firmographics, such as technographic data, funding, or IPO status.

Convinced That You Need An ICP? Here’s How To Get Started.

First, refer to your data to identify similar characteristics among existing customers. Obviously, your product or service appeals to them in some way, so it’s important to identify how! To do a little digging consider downloading a list of current customers and comb through them to identify your most active users or those you have expanded contracts with. Once you have this list, it should be easy to start spotting the similarities! For future reference, be sure to jot down your observations in a spreadsheet or other document to keep track of the data.

Then, consider reaching out to your current customer base to ask them directly why they purchased your service or product. This will help you determine how to target leads that have similar pain points. Though you’ve already collected some data by this point, interviews will allow you to ask subjective questions that can’t be answered from a spreadsheet.

Finally, taking everything you’ve learned to this point, you can create your ICP. To help you in this process, it’s a wise idea to create a document using an ICP template that will help you organize all of your data. Even a simple spreadsheet will make a big difference!

Now, you can put your ICP to the test. Numerous online databases are available to help you filter through prospects to find those that most closely match your ICP. Databases like Crunchbase are a useful tool because they will also alert you when new companies enter their system which match your profile. By filtering through companies, you will narrow down your search and save you a significant amount of time, which can be devoted to other areas of your business.

For further guidance creating your ideal ICP, reach out to WriterArmy today. We support our clients with marketing services and create tailored content specifically for your target audience. Contact us for a free consultation about our services.