Who is your business's ideal customer? To create an effective inbound marketing strategy, this should be one of the initial steps. If you do not know which audience you are targeting then you will not be able to successfully target and convert them. In this article, we will be talking about creating a customer profile, in order to attract and convert more customers, resulting in more sales.
- What does an ideal customer profile look like?
- What is the importance of an ICP?
- The best way to create an ideal customer profile
- Increase sales with your customer profile
- Customer profiles creation mistakes
What does an ideal customer profile look like?
Your ideal customer profile (ICP) can be defined as the most fitting customer, this will be based on data that has been collected. Data can be collected from analytics platforms, CRM as well as feedback surveys.
Information within an ICP consists of demographics, behaviours, psychographics, and much more. Targeted marketing campaigns can be created from this and will more likely reach and be relevant to your target audience. Several variables can be explored when creating an ideal customer profile, these include:
- Behaviours: media consumption, buying habits
- Psychographics: interest, values, personality, lifestyle
- Demographics: gender, age, income, location
What is the importance of an ideal customer profile?
You may already know that not every customer is created equal. Depending on your business, some could potentially be more valuable than others. It's about exploring who your "ideal" customers are when you create an ICP.
It is important to involve multiple stakeholders in the creation of an ICP. In this way, you can clearly identify who your target market is and what they are looking for. Using that information, you can customise your messaging and approach to specifically appeal to your ideal customer. Creating an ICP allows you to tailor the most engaging message to the right customer at the most suitable time, thereby better serving them.
After looking into your data a little bit more and speaking with a range of stakeholders, you may notice that your messaging needs to change, if the right audience is no longer being targeted. It is fairly unlikely that your business's growth is entirely fixed, therefore your ICPs should be revisited regularly. Doing so will help you efficiently track who your target audience is, as well as the suitability in attracting and converting them. Finally, ICPs offer your business a baseline point when measuring the effectiveness of marketing campaigns.
The best way to create an ideal customer profile
Let’s talk through how to create an ideal customer profile…
Customer data
What is the reason for targeting your ideal customer? Understanding this will help to correlate how much revenue the customer will bring in or the relationship between the customer and your business. Talk to the rest of the business and try to understand why you have chosen that particular audience and why are they ideal.
As well as finding out new information, make sure to also look at current data within analytics platforms, feedback surveys and CRM. Take note of psychographics and demographics that result in what you consider your target audience.
Customer feedback surveys
The use of customer data is vital to understand your target market. Although, data on its own can only explain so much. To entirely understand who your customers are, you will need to look further than just numbers. It needs to consider both qualitative and quantitative information. Interviews and customer feedback surveys are a great way to do this. Speaking directly with customers will provide you with insights into motivations, pain points and concerns, to truly reflect your customer.
Increase sales with your customer profile
After creating your ideal customer profile, several things can be done to boost sales.
Look out for leads
A lot of leads are created differently, so therefore some should be targeted with a different marketing strategy. It's important to segment each group depending on their ICP, tailored lead nurturing campaigns should then be created accordingly. This helps to ensure content is relevant to each lead.
Target customer groups using your ICP
At this point, it is likely that you will have several ICPs. So when you begin building each campaign, copy variations and ad rules should resonate with each persona group. Ensure that the demographics who will most likely be interested in your goods or service are targeted.
Sales team
ICPs relate to all areas of the business including the sales team, understanding who they are makes it much easier to tailor a sales pitch. Stories and examples should resonate with them and messages should be crafted to address their wants, needs and pain points.
Customer profiles creation mistakes
Creating a customer profile is often overlooked however, it is essential for all businesses to do. When it comes to creating such profiles, there are often a few mistakes that are made, let's take a look at these…
Using just one team to create the profiles
Many businesses make the mistake of not including everyone when creating the ideal profiles, often only the marketing and sales team taking part. However, all departments should input in order to get the most accurate profile.
Only considering part of the buyer's journey
Your ICP shouldn’t be restricted to your current customers, but also previous customers and leads. All aspects of the buyer's journey should be considered and not only the final point of sale. Only focusing on this ignores that the journey should continue even after the purchase has been completed in order to create loyal long-lasting relationships. Consider all stages from the initial awareness to the post-conversion.
Not regularly reviewing ICPs
Your ICP should be regularly reviewed and refreshed. Customers and markets will often change, so it's important to adapt along with that.
Not basing decisions on data
Many decisions and people are often biased, but looking at data that exists is a must. Your ideal profile should be an accurate representation that will add value to your business.
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