How Do Great Brands Develop Their Ideal Customer Profile? — Part 1

The Beginner’s Guide

Whether you are in the Business-To-Business or Business-To-Consumer space, if you were able to know everything there is to know about your prospects, it would make the process of turning them into paying customers much simpler. Unfortunately, there is no technology that exists as yet to help you do this, which is why businesses of all sizes and industries have turned to the process of developing an Ideal Customer Profile (ICP).

While identifying the most ideal customers for your business may be a time-consuming process, the end result will aid you in marketing your offers to your prospects and ultimately turning them into paying customers. If you are marketing your business to just anyone, you could not only be wasting valuable time and money, but you could also be missing out on big opportunities.

In this set of articles, I will introduce you to the concept of what an Ideal Customer Profile is, and take you through the steps your business should be taking to develop your own ICP, and how use this information to inform on your marketing and sales efforts in order to see increased success.

“On listening: when you’re listening to any prospect, do so as if you’re hard of hearing. Visualize them, and listen as if you need to read their lips.” — Art Sobczak (Over 30 Years Of Experience Helping Others To Prospect) @ArtSobczak

In this article I will cover:

#1 What Is An Ideal Customer Profile?

#2 Why Should You Care About Developing An Ideal Customer Profile?

#3 How Can Developing An Ideal Customer Profile Help You Hit Your Company’s Revenue Targets?

#4 What Should You Watch Out For While Developing Your Ideal Customer Profile?

Let’s dive in…

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#1 What Is An Ideal Customer Profile?

An Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) defines which companies or consumers will be a good fit for your business, and which ones will not. If you are a B2B company, your ICP will define which companies or accounts will be the best fit for your brand, and if you are a B2C company, this definition will be at a contact or end-user level. While the ICP’s will differ for each business type and industry, one thing remains constant — that a well-defined ICP will help you focus your marketing and sales efforts on the right targets, helping you define your strategies and resource allocations with more precision and avoid unnecessary time or monetary wastage.

Most brands are happy accepting any sales or deals, as they will increase their revenue. However, every brand that I have spoken to has more than one horror story of a customer that has proven to be more effort then they are worth, or who simply has not been a good fit for their teams. This is where having an Ideal Customer Profile comes in handy, as it helps you know when you should be saying no to customers, and when to focus extra resources on landing one. And yes — you can say no to customers!

Saying no to poorly fit customers will save your teams valuable time, money and aggravation — and by learning to say no to the customers that you don’t want, you will better be able to determine which ones you should say yes to. Saying yes to the right kind of customers will help you, and every member of your team feel more empowered, and it can help shorten the sales cycle significantly. By having a well-defined ICP, you will also be able to develop the right sales and marketing strategies and messaging tactics that will be most cost-effective and yield the best results. Because, if you know more about your customers, you will know how to market and sell to them to lead them further down the sales funnel.

#2 Why Should You Care About Developing An Ideal Customer Profile?

The whole point of a well-defined marketing strategy, is to allow you to focus your sales and marketing efforts on a relatively small number of high-value account, which have the greatest revenue potential, and are the most important to your brand’s goals. It is for this reason that account or customer selection is of crucial importance to any brand looking at achieving success, whether through account-based marketing or more traditional marketing and sales techniques. Get this right and you’ll get the maximum return from your efforts. Get it wrong and you’ll either miss major opportunities, waste resources on the wrong accounts and customers, or both.

By developing a clear Ideal Customer Profile, you are able to qualify leads before wasting too much time and resources on winning these prospects over, and by knowing which prospects to focus your efforts on, and which ones to cut loose, you are able to give your sales and marketing teams the best chance of seeing success.

Why You Must Have An ICP:

• Gain better quality leads
• Develop an understanding of your customers
• Nurture and create customer loyalty
• Ability to estimate revenue
• Lower your cost of acquisition
• Clearer idea of your value proposition
• Ability to address pain points
• Reduce sales and marketing spend wastage
• Increase team productivity
• Inform on future sales and marketing strategies

Click here to see how brands have used their Ideal Customer Profiles to execute targeted campaigns on social media platforms, like Facebook.

Besides considering the monetary value of creating an ICP, one of the most beneficial reasons for having this in your pocket is that you are able gain actionable insights from it that will inform on your sales and marketing strategies moving forward. This will aid you in figuring out how you can sell and market to your customer segments better. Once you have a solid ICP in place you can start thinking about the following questions:

• What is the best way to reach these prospects?
• What types of promotions are going to encourage engagement from these prospects?
• What types of promotions are not going to appeal to these prospects?
• What can you do to appeal to these prospects’ pain points?
• What steps can you take in your sales and marketing processes to relieve customer anxiety?
• Which products and services will these prospects be most interested in?
• How can you guide these prospects further down the sales funnel?
• And more.

Benefits Of Having An ICP In Place

Once you have gone through the processes of creating your Ideal Customer Profile — it’s time to put it to work. Below, I have listed some of the ways that your ICP will have an impact on your business efforts.

1. Copywriting/Design

When writing content for your business, and bringing that content to life through design, every word needs to be targeted to your ICP. This goes for all kinds of content, including blog posts, video scripts, webinars, sales pages, your elevator pitch, social media posts, your email newsletter and presentations. Likewise, all design elements need to take the ICP into consideration to ensure that the visual appearance attracts the right prospects, supports the message, and helps facilitate resonance with the potential client or customer.

2. Personalization

By knowing who your ideal audiences are, you are able to become more specific in your messaging, communication, creative, and delivery strategies. By personalizing your campaigns and efforts, you are able to reach your ideal clients on a personal level, targeting their specific needs, and increasing chances for conversion.

3. Segmentation

Once you have developed your ICP, you are then able to segment your customer base further to create what we call in-market audiences, which can focus on customers within a particular phase in your sales funnel, a particular gender, a certain job title and more. This allows you to market to micro groups within the ICP database, create marketing campaigns, and content that speak to exactly where they are and give them exactly what they need.

4. Decision-Making

A deep understanding of exactly who your ideal client is can also be a guide as to what information you need to provide to help prospects, clients and customers make a buying decision. Using the information you have about what is important to your clients, what they dream about, what they want to achieve, what problems they want to fix, and what drives your ideal clients to make decisions, provides you with everything you need to create effective marketing and sales campaigns that naturally guide your prospects, clients and customers to a conversion.

It is also going to help you make decisions. In the future, when you’re faced with a marketing decision or you’re unsure about a particular message or campaign, or you’re faced with a decision about your own business, you can ask, “Will my ideal client like this?” If the answer is yes, move forward. If the answer is no, skip it.

As you can see, developing your brand’s ICP should be the first step in developing your sales and marketing strategies, as all other efforts will be based off of the knowledge you have gained from it — helping you to see more success from your efforts.

#3 How Can Developing An Ideal Customer Profile Help You Hit Your Company’s Revenue Targets?

Now that you know what an ICP is and why your brand, no matter its size or industry, should have one, the next article in this series, “How Do Great Brands Develop Their Ideal Customer Profile? — Part 2 (The Intermediate Guide)”, will take you through the process of developing an ICP for your brand, and help guide you to using it effectively in your sales and marketing strategies.

In this article, I will take you through the following:

• Step 1: Finding Your Niche
• Step 2: Focusing On Your Past And Existing Customers
• Step 3: Diving Into The Data
• Step 4: Define How Your Customers Will Find You
• Step 5: Test And Optimize Your ICP
• What To Do Once You Have An ICP

#4 What Should You Watch Out For While Developing Your Ideal Customer Profile?

As will all efforts in attempting to increase your brand’s sales and marketing success, there are common mistakes and best practices that you should be aware of in order to get our efforts off on the right foot. Developing an ICP is no different.

In my article, “How Do Great Brands Develop Their Ideal Customer Profile? — Part 3 (The Advanced Guide)”, I will take you through the aspects of ICP development that you should be aware of, to help you create your Ideal Customer Profile like the pro’s do.

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Find out how developing an ICP can help you increase your chances of hitting your company’s revenue targets by reading the next article in this series, “How Do Great Brands Develop Their Ideal Customer Profile? — Part 2 (The Intermediate Guide)”. — Coming Soon!

General Business Resources

“How Do Great Brands Develop Their Ideal Customer Profile? — Part 1(The Beginner’s Guide)”

“How Do Great Brands Develop Their Ideal Customer Profile? — Part 2(The Intermediate Guide)”

“How Do Great Brands Develop Their Ideal Customer Profile? — Part 3 (The Advanced Guide)”

“Why Is A/B Split Testing Crucial To Success? — Part 1 (The Beginner’s Guide)”

“Why Is A/B Split Testing Crucial To Success? — Part 2 (The Intermediate Guide)”

“Why Is A/B Split Testing Crucial To Success? — Part 3 (The Advanced Guide)”