If you’re like most business owners, you probably have a pretty good idea of who your target market is. But do you know who your ideal customer is? An ideal customer profile (also known as a buyer persona) can help you zero in on the type of person who is most likely to buy from you.
Creating an ideal customer profile takes some time and effort, but it’s worth it if it means that you’ll be able to better focus your marketing efforts and attract more qualified leads. This blog post gives you some tips for creating an ideal customer profile.
What is an Ideal Customer Profile?
An ICP, or ideal client, is a customer who perfectly matches what your company offers.
This is a made-up company that has all the qualities that would make it a great fit for the services you offer.
An Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) is very useful if your company uses Account-Based Marketing (ABM), which allows you to focus your marketing efforts on targeting specific companies.
An ICP is a detailed description of your ideal customers. It outlines their problems, how your product solves them, and your plans for the future.
4 Benefits of Creating an Ideal Customer Profile
Using your Ideal Customer Profile, you can not only provide your sales reps with valuable insight into who they should be targeting, but also use that information to test new features and products.
Ideal Customer Profiles (ICPs) are an important tool for…
1. Speed Up the Sales Cycle
44% of salespeople surveyed in the 2019 Linkedin State Of Sales report said their sales teams are struggling to find qualified leads to shorten the sales process.
Today, consumers tend to buy on impulse and make decisions faster than ever before. Because of this, it’s important to create buyer personas, or ideal consumer profiles.
2: Personalize Marketing
Personalization is key to driving more sales. The fastest growing companies are using personalized marketing to reach their target clients. With an Ideal Customer Profile (ICP), you can do the same.
3. Increase the Size of the deal by 83% in Just One Year
When a company changes its Ideal Customer Profile, it increases its Average Deal Size by 83%. This, in turn, increases the Lifetime Value of its customers.
Yep… higher LTV.
4. Help in Account-Based Marketing
70% of B2B companies use Account-Based Marketing (ABM) in 2021, which is an increase from 2020. And nearly half of the respondents say that providing personalized experiences is their greatest challenge with using ABM.
Once we knew that our target customer was, we focused on reaching them. This helped us to focus on the right channels.
These aren’t the clients you can sign up the quickest—these are the clients who are most likely to stick with you for the long haul.
How to Create an Ideal Customer Profile in 7 Steps
Before qualifying and contacting potential customers, you should have created an ideal buyer profile.
1. What is the importance of creating your ideal client? 2. What are the advantages of having an ideal client? 3. How can you create the ideal clients for your company?
Building an Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) doesn’t have to be difficult. Follow these 7 simple steps to build the perfect profile for your company.
Start by compiling a list of the attributes of your top 10% of best clients. Then, analyze those traits and determine what challenges they face. Next, mention your USP and list your ICP. Lastly, review your draft and make any necessary changes.
Before you start
As you begin working on your Ideal Customer Profile, you may realize that there is a particular piece of information that you really need to nail down.
Your contact list is your database.
Data quality is incredibly important, but just because your database isn’t perfect doesn’t mean you can’t improve it. There are ways to clean up your data, and it’s essential to do so if you want to keep your business running smoothly.
Having good, accurate information is key to making the right decisions. Make sure your database is as up to date and accurate as can be.
When it comes to building your ICP, bad data can be costly. Make sure you’re going after the right kind of companies by using accurate data.
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1. Compile a list of your best customers
To compile a CRM, you’ll need to make a list of your top 10 best existing customers. These should be people that you’re currently satisfied with and who have a similar profile. This will make it easier to market and sell to them.
Or, you can go by these criteria below:
Some of our best customers are those who have been with us for a long time and have referred us to others. They are also the ones who have the highest satisfaction levels and renew their contracts with us regularly.
The best way to get accurate data is to use information from reputable sources.
2. Analyze Your Customers
Once you have a list of your customers, you can figure out their ‘why’ and ‘what’:
Your current customer base is the backbone of your company. They are the ones who have stuck with you, and the ones who have generated revenue for you. By understanding the ‘why’ and the ‘what’, you can duplicate the behaviors that make your customers so loyal.
Here are a few ways you can find solutions to these problems.
Analyze customer support tickets: Customer support interactions are a goldmine of information about customer pain points.
Conduct social media listening: Social media is a great platform to understand what customers are saying about your brand, product, or service. If you want to get to the root of your customers’ needs and desires, there are a few ways to go about it.
You can connect with them directly through interviews, collect feedback via surveys, analyze customer support tickets, or conduct social media listening. All of these methods will give you valuable insights into what your customers are thinking and feeling.
Get feedback from your customers through surveys or questionnaires.
To attract new customers, you can survey current customers to find out what they like about your product. You can also find similar people on social media and through analytics. By understanding what makes a customer great, you can market to them more effectively.
3. List the notable attributes
Now that you understand who your top customers are based on revenue, it’s time to start documenting their 5-10 defining characteristics.
It’s important to consider company size, revenue and growth, as well as industry and technology when building your buyer persona. However, this is just a starting place- feel free to add or subtract any details as you see fit.
Once you have your template, add in your results.
While creating a simple ICP template for outbound sales is doable, we recommend taking the following three additional steps.
1. Keep moving forward2. Don’t give up3. Persevere
4. Find Your Customer’s Challenges
Knowing your customer’s behaviors helps your sales representatives figure out the best ways to serve them. It also helps your reps target specific customers with personalized messages.
This is how one company was able to increase their sales opportunities from 5% to 14%–they were able to target the right customers with specific messages.
How do you go about finding your customers’ pains, motivators, and needs?
Hosting a zoom or a brand community is a simple way to directly talk to your customers.
5. Outline your Unique Selling Proposition
Our Unique Selling Point (USP) sets us apart from competitors and explains why our customers should choose us. We are dedicated to providing the best customer experience possible, and our (insert your 1-2 sentence unique selling proposition here) is one way we do that.
A USP, or unique selling point, is a statement that clearly and concisely explains what makes your business different from the competition.
Your unique selling point is the one thing about your product that makes it stand out from all the rest. It’s what gives your offering that special edge that customers are looking for.
Your USP is what helps guide your sales and marketing efforts so that each department can concentrate on its own area. That way, you can be sure to always present your offerings in the best possible light.
6. Create your ICP Template
In this final stage, all of your research, insights, and data can be compiled into a formal document called an “ICP” or “Ideal Customer Profile.”
So, what does an Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) Template actually consist of? Let’s take a look.
Always be sure to have basic information on your ideal customers, such as:
Your ideal customers should be in your target demographic and have the appropriate behaviorial insight. Your product should clearly address their pain point, and they should be able see exactly how you can solve it.
Use our Breadcrumb Worksheet (with instructions!) to build your ideal buyer persona. Be sure to create multiple personas for each segment you have.
Different pain points and different value props may apply to each segment.
7. Review and revise
Your ideal buyer persona shouldn’t be set in stone. As your buyers’ needs change, so should your personas.
It’s important to keep updating your ideal buyer persona regularly. Tools like breadcrumb can help ensure your data stays accurate.
Your new Ideal Customer Profile is ready to go. Now what?
Using your customer persona, you can tailor your marketing to your target audience. This can help you reach your goals.
Using the Ideal Customer Profile as a benchmark is a great way to score and prioritize your lead list. You can also discover additional pain-points that you may not have known about before.
Using your Ideal Customer Profile, you can create highly-targeted and personalised advertisements that will reach entirely new market segments. This can help attract brand new leads that are highly likely to convert into paying customers.
No matter what your goals are, you’ll need to have a detailed understanding of your customers. Creating a free account with Breadcrumb’s Reveal tool will help you gain a better understanding of who your Ideal Customer Profile is.
Conclusion
If you’re looking to create an ideal customer profile for your business, following these tips will help you zero in on the right target audience and create a buyer persona that accurately represents them. By taking the time to understand who your ideal customer is, you’ll be able to better focus your marketing efforts and attract more qualified leads.
Need Help Automating Your Sales Prospecting Process?
LeadFuze gives you all the data you need to find ideal leads, including full contact information.
Go through a variety of filters to zero in on the leads you want to reach. This is crazy specific, but you could find all the people that match the following:
- A company in the Financial Services or Banking industry
- Who have more than 10 employees
- That spend money on Adwords
- Who use Hubspot
- Who currently have job openings for marketing help
- With the role of HR Manager
- That has only been in this role for less than 1 year
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