Marketers and leaders make a lot of sweeping statements about the importance of personalization and targeting.
Here’s a brief sampling:
These statements are easy to say. They’re also technically true. But an organization’s ability to achieve each of them requires discipline to define who should be targeted and when.
This is where many organizations fall short. They fear that limiting their focus to a small sliver of prospects will damage growth. Our experience has been the exact opposite. In fact, focusing on acquiring only ideal customers will lead not only to increased effectiveness in sales and marketing, but better scalability when it comes to service delivery and customer success.
The tool of choice for narrowing sales and marketing focus at A Brave New, and many other marketers, is a tool called the ideal customer profile (ICP). An ICP describes the essential ingredients of your perfect customer. The one you wish you could clone.
As I mentioned before, a clearly defined ICP benefits all areas of the business. But remember, for it to do so, it must not only be defined, but adhered to by both sales and marketing. The moment someone relaxes on their targeting requirements, the benefits quickly disappear.
Here are a few of the benefits the ICP provides for each area of the business.
Marketing Benefits
Sales Benefits
Customer Success Benefits
Every ICP is a combination of objective information that you could easily search and find, as well as more subjective information that lives inside of your team’s head. You must include both to get the maximum value out of your ICP
Any ideal customer profile should be targeted by the following elements:
Once you’ve identified the objective facts, you should be able to search and find 500-1,000 companies that match your criteria using a prospecting tool like Zoominfo or Seamless.ai.
Next, it’s time to unpack the subjectives.
Think about the subjective stuff that can’t be found in a simple Google search. These are all the little details that move your ICP beyond a catalog of industry verticals you want to work with to a detailed sketch of the unique type of company that you can successfully serve. We typically think through the following subjective elements:
If you’re convinced of the value of an ICP, it’s time to get started right away. We recommend a data-centric approach to defining the objective facts and a collaborative approach to the subjective elements.
The best way to define the measurable aspects of your ideal customer profile is to analyze your customer base and identify what all successful customers have in common. This can be as simple as pulling the data and doing the analysis yourself. Ask questions like:
Typically this type of ad hoc analysis will get you 95% towards what you need. But, if you want to get the additional 5% and discover any hidden factors that all of your best customers have in common, bring in an analyst who can do a more detailed dive into all of the available data points to identify those that are the most important. You might be surprised by what you find.
The subjective elements of an ICP are easier to think of but much harder to verify. These are all the elements that come out as you get to know a client but are not immediately apparent during a Google search.
To begin defining these, I recommend gathering together the people who know your customers best for a quick working session. During the session, have a conversation about your 3-5 best customers and discuss the following:
Having these discussions will help you identify key commonalities between all of your best customers that need to be present in future customers. Capture them in a list, add them to the objective facts, and you’ll see your ideal customer come into focus.
Once you’ve written down your ICP, roll it out with your team. Be consistent and stick to it. Don’t allow yourself to get distracted by other types of customers that will bog you down and slow your growth. The right kind of growth will follow, growth that can be sustained by sales, marketing, and customer success.
Still doing some research into inbound marketing? Click here to read our guide: Generate the Right Leads, Build Trust, Achieve Breakthrough Growth.