What is an Ideal Customer Profile?
An ideal customer profile (ICP) describes the ideal client for the problems that your business solves. This is a made-up business with all the characteristics that would make it the ideal match for the solutions you offer.
We are constantly speaking with sales directors who tell us that one of their biggest challenges is getting their ideal customer profiles right.
This common problem is completely understandable for two reasons:
1. You’ll learn more about your ideal customer over time
Figuring out who your ideal customers are, and what challenges they face is a learning curve. You can’t expect to know all of this information from the get-go, so cut yourself some slack.
2. Your ideal customer will change over time
As technology evolves, the market changes, and those buying from you now may not buy from you in future. This isn’t your fault, it’s the nature of sales. On the plus side, customers who don’t need what you’re selling now, might need it later, because your ideal customers are always changing, learning and growing.
Here come the actionable takeaways!
How to improve your ideal customer profile right now:
Step 1. Make a list of all your best customers.
These are the ones that are currently paying the full price of what your products are worth and are benefitting from your solution. Your best customers are the ones who are gaining value from having your product or service.
Step 2. Find all of the common attributes amongst your best customers.
Look for any commonalities between them. You will need to do a lot of research in this stage and get creative in order to paint a detailed picture of each customer. This will make it easier for you to identify what they have in common.
Step 3. Take the commonalities you found in the previous step and put them in order of priority.
Your ICP shouldn’t be overloaded with attributes so this stage will help you to define the most important ones.
Step 4. Update your current ICP.
Add your new prioritized list of common attributes amongst your best customers.
Step 5. Repeat steps 1-4.
We almost forgot to mention secret bonus step number 6!
Once you’ve perfected your ICP, you need to make it easily accessible for your whole team. With Stack, you can:
- Build a digital ICP Roll it out to your entire team.
- Quickly and easily update your ICP over time.
Schedule a call with us and we’d be glad to show you how it works.
