Do you have a method to create your ideal customer profile (Known as ICP)?
Do you use an ideal customer profile?
What questions do you ask when crafting your ICP?
Can you name the other questions when you create an ICP??
What do you think of the ICP for your business?
Getting a leg up on competitors happens at the very beginning of your campaign: when you’re crafting your ideal customer profile. Often referred to in shorthand as the ICP, the ideal customer profile is just a detailed description of the type of company you’re most likely to sell to. It’s a well-rounded, well-thought-out idea of the customer who will benefit the most from the product or service you offer.
One is: Have you actually written down your ICP?
Your ideal customer profile shouldn’t just be a passing thought among marketing executives. It’s not a fluffy, generalized idea you reference in a broad manner. “We’re targeting large retailers in the culinary goods space” is not an ICP. Think of the ICP like a plan: Written down, you’re actually able to visualize what will work and what you need in order to launch a full-scale, successful marketing campaign. This also helps create clear communication between the sales and marketing teams—which is a key point—as the sales team has knowledge that can help fill in some of the gaps in the ICP.
For those new to the ICP game, there are companies available that can help B2B companies fill out exactly who and what makes up their ideal customer profile.
2. Is your ICP as small and specific as possible?
Go back to the initial questions you asked yourself. Take location, for example. Maybe initially you wanted to target large retailers in the culinary goods space in the northeast region of the country . Would it benefit you to be even tighter in that definition, say large retailers in the culinary goods space in the tri-state region with headquarters in mid-to-large-sized cities? Remember, your ICP should be dynamic but start as small as possible. You can always build it out as your business gains traction.
3. Do the companies within your ICP have an urgent problem you can solve?
Urgency doesn’t mean market your product today, sell tomorrow. The average B2B sales cycle for ICP is at least four months. When developing your ICP, urgency simply refers to the actual need for your product. These customers are aware of their pain points and know something needs to be done to solve them. Having this information about a target account ensures you aren’t wasting marketing dollars on those companies who might be the perfect fit, but they just signed a two-year contract with one of your competitors. It also contributes to an overall shorter sales cycle (there’s no need to spend time convincing these accounts they need you), saving your marketing team money and your sales team time.
4. What is your ICP’s budget?
A CFO of a smaller company won’t be slightly tempted to sign your $75,000 annual contract (over half of the company’s marketing budget for the year)—even if your product would benefit them immensely. Once again, this is where the ICP comes into play. When determining the exact range, determine “the lowest cost threshold that a customer would have to pay for your product or service,” then work up from there.
5. Do I need to expand my ICP?
Once you’ve created your initial ideal customer profile, your team can get started actually executing the campaign. Ad copy is written, graphics are designed, email lists are curated, intent data provides account information, and some of your targets start to move toward the evaluation stage of the funnel. At this moment, it’s easy to rest on your marketing laurels: Why change anything if it’s working? Why not use this exact same game plan next quarter? Stop right there. Companies that make the effort to revisit their ICPs three to four times a year will always have an upper hand; continuing to develop and expand an ICP leads to larger, and often better, sales opportunities down the line. Plus, you didn’t put in all of that effort building the original ICP to let it fall to the wayside.