What is an Ideal Customer Profile? And why your business needs one.

Contributor: Lisa Day
9 hours ago
4 min read

An ideal customer profile (ICP) is a tool to help B2B owners learn who their ideal customer is so they can use their resources more efficiently to grow their business

By Lisa Day / Jessica Alex Marketing Editorial Team

Whether you are a new or established business owner, now is the time to create an ideal customer profile, or ICP, for your B2B company.

An ICP is a tool used to help you establish what type of organization or business your product or service can help. By creating an ICP, you will have the information you need to understand what type of companies you should target to grow your own business, and which ones you should avoid because what you offer, they don’t need or can’t afford.

Think of an ICP as a reminder of what you do and what type of business would benefit most from your products and services.

What is an ICP?

In a nutshell, an ICP is a tool that helps business owners pull together a profile of the ideal type of business that will benefit from the products and services you offer. An ICP helps you narrow down what type of business you should target for lead generation, sales and marketing.

What does your ideal customer look like?

An ideal customer wants the products and services you are selling, and they can afford to pay for it. The ideal customer will be loyal, recommending your products, services and business to friends and colleagues. Your ICP appreciates that you offer something that benefits them specifically and improves their bottom line.

Why is an ICP important?

An ICP can help you drive business by saving you time and money. By understanding how your products and services provide value to your ideal customer, you can better allocate your time and resources marketing to businesses and organizations that are more likely to say “yes.”

An ICP can help you to better allocate your time and resources marketing to businesses and organizations that are more likely to say “yes.”

When should you create an ICP?

An ICP ideally should be created before you launch a product or service but can be created at any time. An ICP shouldn’t be stagnant but should be updated as you learn more about your ideal customer or if you add additional products or services to your business.

What should an ICP look like?

An ICP can be as simple as a paragraph or two, or a visual representation. An ICP is a document that helps you easily understand what product and service you are offering and what pain points it solves for your ideal customer.

What information should an ICP include?

An ICP should be as detailed as possible using real data gathered from your customers. An ICP should include information such as:

Company industry or unique market
Company size
Company revenue, and whether they have buying power to use your products or services
Physical location of company, drilled down to neighbourhoods
Business model (for example, membership driven, service-based, e-commerce)
Buying behaviours, values, interests
Technology, systems or services already used or implemented
Pain points your business can help solve
Ongoing versus one-time need for your products or services
Reasons your ideal customer needs your business’s help now
Brief description of the ideal business

How do you create an ICP?

If you already have customers, use the data you have collected from them. Look at emerging patterns, both individually and collectively between customers.

Here are some questions to explore when reviewing and establishing what your customer patterns are:

What do they purchase from you?
How often do they purchase from you?
How long does it take for them to decide to purchase?
How do they use your products/services?
What pain points do you solve?
How do they engage with you?
What motivates them to buy?

If you are launching something new, write down what your products and services do and what pain points they solve. Review market trends and competing businesses to see what others are offering their customers.

What happens if you don’t have an ICP?

Without an ICP, you may wind up guessing who your customers are and what they need. This leads to wasting resources: time and energy on targeting businesses that do not want, cannot afford, or cannot implement the products and services you offer. An ICP helps you generate leads and improve sales by allowing you to focus on the customers who will more likely say “yes,” while decreasing resources and time spent with those who would say “no.”

What is the difference between an ICP and a B2B buyer persona?

An ICP is a tool that helps you narrow down the type of business that you should connect with to generate sales. A B2B buyer persona is a detailed description of a fictitious decision-maker who may work within that company. An ICP helps you decide what type of business you should focus your attention on. A B2B buyer persona helps you decide how to communicate with a specific person through messaging and content creation including newsletters, websites and social media.

The two B2B tools work together seamlessly to help you find customers so you can connect with the right people and companies to grow your business.