Let’s get one thing straight: if your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) is basically “anyone with a budget and a heartbeat,” then congratulations, you’re not doing marketing, you’re doing wishful thinking. And your pipeline probably looks like a sad salad of unqualified leads, churn risks, and sales reps crying in Slack.

So let’s fix that, shall we?

What the hell Is an ICP?

Your ICP isn’t just some fluffy marketing exercise. It’s the strategic foundation for who your company should be selling to. Not could. Not would if they had more budget. Should.

An Ideal Customer Profile is a fictionalised-yet-data-informed representation of a company that gets maximum value from your product or service and sticks around long enough to make your Customer Success team want to bake you cookies.

It’s about focus. Because if you try to appeal to everyone, you end up resonating with no one—and burning your marketing budget in the process.

Core elements of a strong B2B ICP

Firmographics you need for an ICP

Think: Industry, company size, revenue, geography, funding stage, tech stack.

How to find this out:

• Analyse your current best customers (not just revenue-wise, look for stickiness and satisfaction).
• Use tools like Clearbit, LinkedIn Sales Navigator, and BuiltWith.
• Cross-reference CRM and revenue data. Look at closed-won deals, not just MQLs (Marketing Qualified Leads).

Pain points (no, not “wants to be more efficient”)

Real pain points. As in: “I’m bleeding budget on manual processes,” or “My ops team is threatening to revolt.”

How to find this out:

• Interview your customers (yes, talk to them, shocking, I know).
• Talk to Sales and Customer Success. They’re sitting on a goldmine of insight while you’re busy Googling “2024 B2B content trends.”
• Dig into support tickets, onboarding feedback, win/loss analysis.

Buying triggers (a.k.a. what gets them off the fence)

Did they just raise a funding round? Merge with a bigger fish? Hire a new VP of Ops? These are signs they’re ready to solve problems, hopefully with you.

How to find this out:

• Monitor job boards, PR, and LinkedIn updates.
• Ask your Sales team what the most common “moment of readiness” looks like.

Decision-making dynamics

Who signs the cheque? Who does the due diligence? Who’s going to block the deal because they “already use a spreadsheet for that”?

How to find this out:

• Win/loss interviews or conversations with the Sales team.
• Sales call recordings.
• Journey mapping with your Sales and Product teams.

Behavioural traits

Are they innovation-first or risk-averse? Do they trial before they buy, or want a full demo and security review upfront?

How to find this out:

• Segment behaviour in your CRM (for example if they had a trial before they bought and what does that tell you).
• Analyse onboarding and sales processes.
• Talk to CSMs. Again. They always know.
  How to keep it grounded in reality (because fantasy ICPs don’t pay the bills)

• Start with data: Use your existing customers to build v1. The ones who actually renew.
• Validate it with Sales, Product, CS, and even Finance. If your ICP buys once and bails, they’re not ideal.
• Check for product fit: You can’t sell enterprise compliance features to SMBs who still use Gmail.

Bonus: your ICP should evolve. If it’s the same as it was 18 months ago, you’re either not growing or you’re asleep at the wheel.

ICPs Are not just for Marketing

Sales:

Uses the ICP to qualify leads faster than you can say “forecast accuracy.” No more wasting three discovery calls on someone who just wanted a quote for their investor deck.

Product:

If Product isn’t building for your ICP, then who tf are they building for? Feature prioritisation, roadmap alignment, and user research should all be ICP-informed.

Customer Success:

They use it to anticipate needs, upsell effectively, and actually deliver on promised outcomes.

Leadership:

Execs should use the ICP to guide strategic decisions, like which markets to expand into or what partnerships to pursue.

Final word: ICPs are strategic weapons, not dusty PDFs

If your ICP is a slide buried in last year’s strategy deck, it’s time to resurrect it. This isn’t just a marketing artefact, it’s a north star. A filtering tool. A bullsh*t detector.

And when done right, it keeps your entire company aligned, focused, and profitable.

Now go forth, be bold, and stop selling to everyone.

P.S. Need help fixing your ICP? Send this post to your leadership Slack channel and watch the chaos ensue. Or better yet, book a strategy session before Sales adds another random-ass persona to the pipeline.