No matter what industry you’re in, whether it is B2B or B2C, you need to know your ideal customer profile (ICP); the buyer within that company (if b2b) or the target customer (if b2c). Understanding the specific needs, pain points, buyer intentions and preferences of your audience is the ultimate foundation for effective marketing, sales, brand, product development, and business building.
When Nick Gerard, Steven Layne, and I launched Norby, we focussed on a specific ICP, creating a long list of characteristics based on research, interviews and honestly sometimes our best guesses (which is kosher! If you’re doing the other stuff, too!). We narrowed down to 3 - 4 of the ICPs that we felt were most important to who we were trying to convert, and created go-to-market plans for each that we then tested, and iterated on. With actual data coming in, we could review our initial hypothesess and update our strategy based on what we learned by being out there and in-market. And we’re running this again for our new AI-powered marketing intelligence platform that we're piloting. Here’s a list of characteristics you want to consider when building your own ICP:
💡Industry / Type of Business
💡Company size
💡Job title and responsibilities
💡Location
💡Pain points and challenges
💡Goals
💡Specific tech and tech stacks used
💡Ways of working and workflows
💡Buying behaviors
💡Decision-making process
💡Interests
💡Where the buyer spends time
💡Price points
💡Revenue or ad spend
I personally love learning where a buyer spends their time, because then, you know at least one way and place to reach them :-) For instance, your buyer might be spending time in a subreddit, or an IRL community that hikes or is about female entrepreneurship. From there you can think about advertising, partnering, sponsoring or creating content that will reach them.
