Every business dreams of its ideal customer — someone who will stay loyal for life, just like in romantic films with happy endings.
But we, the team at Solve Marketing’s remote marketing department, know the truth. The “ideal customer” is not an ephemeral image from a short film about marketing and sales, where the business and the customer like each other at first sight, but a very real metric…
To learn more about ICP (Ideal Customer Profile) as a marketing metric and ideal customer profile for B2B and B2C, we spoke with partners from the Solve Marketing agency: Chief Operating Officer Kateryna Bilokon and Project Manager of the Medvoice project, which we will discuss further below, Anna Gangan.
In this article, you will learn:
- What is ICP?;
- How does the profile of the ideal customer differ in the B2B and B2C sectors?
- Solve Marketing’s checklist for determining ICP;
- Who is the buyer persona?
- a negative customer profile;
- which helps to identify the profile of the ideal customer for the business.
What is ICP?
An ideal customer profile (ICP) is a description of a business or individual that derives the most value and benefit from an offering.
The ideal customer is the most interested among other customers. Therefore, ICP as a characteristic helps to focus sales and marketing strategy on target customers with the necessary characteristics and reduces the time spent by managers on non-target leads.
Understanding the profile of your ideal customer enables you to:
How does the profile of an ideal customer differ in the B2B and B2C sectors?
Depending on the type of relationship (B2B or B2C), segment, and specifics of the business, the ideal customer profile will differ and have different search criteria.
The characteristics of the ideal customer in the B2C sphere are the customer’s personal data. The ICP portrait in B2B is a comprehensive analysis of the company and the characteristics of the people who make decisions about cooperation, the so-called buyer personas.
In our practice, we only use modern marketing, where ICP for the B2C sphere consists of criteria such as:
- description of the circumstances under which a person is seeking a specific solution;
- certain characteristics of a person that enable them to make this choice.
The company’s service and the ideal customer are two components that complement each other. When combined, the situation is resolved, and the need is satisfied.
Using the example of Solve Marketing’s services, it looks like this:
1. Our service is a remote marketing department. We take care of strategic planning and implementation of marketing strategies through content marketing, lead generation, and custom analytics. Clients no longer need to spend time on operational marketing: they can focus on product and service development. In this way, we help clients become leaders in their markets.
2. Our client’s ICP looks like this:
A business owner who already manages the company’s operational marketing. He is forced to constantly spend time planning, generating new ideas, and controlling processes. Marketing development is limited by his knowledge of marketing and time. He wants to delegate all marketing so he can focus on developing his product and service. Therefore, he is looking for a company that will take over the lead generation and brand development processes so that his business can become a leader in its niche.ше.
Anna, project manager, agency partner:
— I will talk about ICP using the example of MEDVOICE, an international medical training platform for developing the professional skills of doctors.
The ideal MEDVOICE customer is a doctor who strives to develop and improve their professional skills, and therefore quickly decides to purchase a course.
For the B2B sphere, the ideal customer profile is a description of the company that can benefit most from the product or service. In the classic ICP search method, it is a list of qualities that need to be formulated in order to focus on your ideal customer.
- Number of employees.
- Budget and sales volume.
- The company’s field of activity.
- Region and location.
- The size of the company’s customer base.
- External or internal business needs of the company:
- internal — organisation of work processes remotely or in the office;
- external — cooperation with a company that delivers goods to the company’s customers.
List of questions for determining ICP from Solve Marketing
To create an ideal customer profile for your business, we recommend answering the following questions.
Furthermore, when we discuss a company description, we are actually referring to the vision and needs of its managers, because it is people who make decisions. Most often, this is one person in the form of the owner.
Here is our list of answers that enable Solve Marketing to focus on finding its ideal customers.
1. The main requirement is to attract the number of enquiries necessary for the business.
2. It is an ambitious company that wants to become a leader in its market.
3. We already have experience working with several different contractors, but we are not satisfied with the results.
4. Choosing a contractor based on values.
5. There is a request for immediate resolution of the need.
6. The client is looking for contractors who are willing to give their all to achieve the goal.
7. Among the core values are honesty, trust, efficiency, consistency, and persistence in achieving results. The client cares about overall comfort at work and is ready to help with difficult issues.
Who is a buyer persona?
The description of one ideal customer profile may contain several buyer personas.
The clear difference between a buyer persona and an ISP can be understood by looking at our strategy for the company, using the example of our agency partner and operations director, Kateryna, who is involved in the integration of CRM systems — CRM Solutions.
— In our case, for CRM system integrators, the buyer persona is the company owner—a somewhat pragmatic and forward-thinking individual who is keen to learn. They are methodical and results-oriented. The buyer persona of the ideal client understands the value of a CRM system and therefore expects not only to streamline processes within their company but also to increase profits.
Negative customer profile
Before we move on to the practical application of ICP, let’s talk about anti-ICP or the portrait of a negative customer.
A negative customer profile is a generalised image of a person (B2C) or business (B2B) that you would not want to see as your customer.
When working with ICP, it is sometimes easier to start with anti-ICP and outline a customer profile that would be a complete disaster for the business.
It is important to understand that a negative customer profile is not about a set of personality traits that make it difficult to work with a person or business. A negative profile is about a customer who is not a good fit for your company, who finds it difficult to benefit from your service, product, or offer, and whose cooperation will lead to negative consequences, such as customer churn.
Serhii, partner at CRM-Solutions:
— Anti-CRM for CRM Solutions is a client who integrates the system but does not want to learn how to use it and, as a result, will not do so. Such clients will expect the CRM to work on its own, but miracles do not happen.
Here is another example: anti-ICP is a client who does not want to spend time describing their business processes, does not provide feedback, but wants the system to fully meet their expectations.
Anna, project manager, agency partner:
— For most B2C sectors, anti-ICP is a person who needs maximum time, but their demands are beyond what is possible. Therefore, they remain dissatisfied in any case and ask for their money back, and then leave negative comments on social media. It should be understood that every business has its own specifics and false expectations.
What does understanding the ideal customer profile mean for a business?
ISP has two practical areas of application — sales and marketing departments:
- The ideal customer profile helps you find customers. Among potential customers, the manager can more quickly identify the target customer and focus their efforts on the sales process for that specific customer.
- ISP assists at the product demonstration stage: understanding customer needs makes it possible to create personalised presentations for specific customers (B2C) and buyer personas.
- The ideal customer profile will help train new sales managers. Knowing the ICP, they will quickly get up to speed and move on to their first sales.
- ISP helps launch advertising campaigns targeting specific audiences with the right message.
Anna, project manager of the MEDVOICE project, agency partner:
— For the texts of MEDVOICE platform advertising campaigns, we highlighted not only relevant topics or course benefits, but also, separately, the main speakers that people are interested in.
Advertising campaigns are designed to work more effectively and generate more targeted leads at a lower cost.
In addition, the ideal customer profile helps in developing a product strategy for a company or brand.
Conclusions
So, ICP is a useful tool that helps businesses accelerate sales growth. How exactly?
- Attract new customers who need your product or service right now.
- Optimise marketing expenditure to attract precisely those customers who are more likely to remain satisfied and generate greater revenue for the company.
- Create unique, personalised advertising offers based on customer interests and needs.
Would you like to create an accurate profile of your ideal customer or carry out a comprehensive marketing study? Submit a request — we’ll analyse your case and propose a solution.
