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Glossary Attract more customers 2 min read

What is an ideal customer profile (ICP)?

Sarah Impey Marketing Director and Consultant

Short answer

An ideal customer profile (ICP) describes the type of business or person that gets the most out of what you sell, and is the most worthwhile for you to work with. It's built from your best existing customers. Once you've got one, it guides who your marketing targets and which leads your sales team chases first.

Also known as: Target audience, Audience persona, Lead generation

Contents

Why it matters

When you're growing, it's tempting to go after anyone who might buy. The trouble is that "anyone" is very hard to market to. Your messages end up broad. So they don't really speak to the people you most want to reach.

An ICP gives you focus. You know where to spend your marketing budget and which events are worth going to. You can write for one type of reader, which nearly always makes the writing better.

It also helps you spot customers who'll be hard work. Most businesses have a few clients who take up loads of time and still aren't happy. An ICP makes it easier to see them coming and politely step aside. (If we’ve done our job well, even you should sit under one of our ICPs.)

Common mistakes

  • Describing who you'd like to sell to, rather than who buys.

    Start with the customers you already have and love. Wishful thinking makes for a shaky ICP.

  • Keeping it too broad.

    "SMEs in the UK" covers millions of businesses. Add detail until it rules plenty of people out.

  • Mixing it up with a buyer persona.

    An ICP describes the type of company (or customer). A persona describes the person inside it who makes the decision. You'll probably want both eventually.

  • Never updating it.

    You business and market changes, sometimes as often as the seasons. Look at it again every year or so.

How to get started

  • List your best customers. Pick the five to ten you'd happily clone. Size isn't everything here. Look for the ones who are profitable and easy to work with.
  • Look for patterns. Check things like sector, size, location, and how they found you. You'll usually spot overlaps quickly.
  • Note what problem they had. What was going wrong when they came to you? That's often the most useful part of an ICP.
  • Write it up in a short paragraph. Something like: "Founders of UK businesses turning over £1m to £5m, with no in-house marketing team, who've grown through word of mouth and now need a steadier flow of leads."
  • Add a few red flags. List the signs a customer won't be a good fit. It's just as useful as the ideal.
  • Share it. Make sure everyone who does sales or marketing has read it and uses it.

FAQs

What's the difference between an ICP and a target audience?

Your target audience is the wider group you're trying to reach with marketing. Your ICP is the narrower group within that who make the best customers. Think of the ICP as the bullseye in the middle of the target.

Is an ICP only for B2B businesses?

The term comes from B2B (selling to other businesses), where it describes types of company. But B2C businesses can use the same idea. They just describe types of people instead.

How detailed should an ICP be?

Detailed enough that someone could look at a potential customer and say "yes" or "no" fairly quickly. A paragraph plus a short list of must-haves and red flags is usually plenty.

Can I have more than one ICP?

You can, if you sell quite different things to quite different customers. But most smaller businesses do better with one or two main ICPs. Too many and you're back to targeting everyone.

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