The ultimate GTM Guide on creating your Ideal Customer Profile
To build a successful sales development strategy
Read time: 3 min
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Last week, I shared the exciting news about joining Agorapulse to build the SDR function.
One of my first tasks? Figuring out our Ideal Customer Profile (ICP).
Good news! We have an idea, and we're making it better.
Lots of companies get this wrong.
They say, “Big companies are our main targets.” Why?
When their pricing isn’t based on the revenue of the company.
And some?
They just guess who they should sell to instead of looking at the data.
When you don’t really know your best customer, you end up chasing the wrong ones.
SDRs are wasting their time chasing the wrong accounts, and AEs spending time with accounts that aren’t going to close.
Today, I want to share my guide on creating your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) to build a successful sales development strategy (inbound, PLG, and outbound), here’s how:
Step 1: Numbers Game: Quantitative Analysis
Find patterns in your customer data.
What do your best customers have in common?
You can find this information in your CRM. However, your CRM might not have all the necessary metrics, so you'll need to enrich your data using tools like Clay, ZoomInfo, or Cognism.
Here are a few examples of demographic and technographic data:
Demographics
Their location
Employee count
Industry
Size of the end-user teams
Revenue
Team structure
Multiple locations
Etc.
Technographics
The apps/tech they use in their stack
It's important to know a company's tech stack. For instance, if you're offering a product that integrates with other products or if you want to gauge a business's maturity.
For example:
With CastorDoc, if prospects are using on-premise data solutions, we can't assist them. We wouldn't want to waste their time.
Chili Piper integrates only with two CRMs: Salesforce and Hubspot. So, if a sales team uses a different CRM, we couldn’t cater to them.
Step 2: The Human Touch: Qualitative Analysis
Numbers only tell half the story.
You also want to focus on qualitative information.
Find this by talking to your customers, listening to call recordings, and checking G2 reviews or case studies.
Ask them:
Why did you buy it?
What problems were you trying to solve?
What were you afraid of before buying?
What's your favorite part of the product?
What has changed the most since you bought it?
How do you describe your product to another buyer persona?
Step 3: Uncover your ICP Using Both Quantitative and Qualitative data
Blend your quantitative and qualitative insights. You'll start to see patterns.
Those patterns? They form your ICP.
For example:
Talkpush - CRM for recruitment teams
Companies with high employee turnover that hire more than 100 employees annually, like BPOs/Contact centers, supermarkets, and food chains. They use ATS systems like SuccessFactors, iCIMS Talent Cloud, and Workday and usually have a recruitment team of 5 people.
Recruitment agencies/RPOs with high screening numbers cater to similar customers.
Chili Piper - a scheduling tool
SaaS businesses in the US, Canada, UK, Israel, and France, with over 10 sales reps, typically using Salesforce or Hubspot as their CRM.
Targeting SMBs
Sales teams across various locations or segments: SMB, Mid-market, Enterprise
Presence of an SDR team and handoffs between various sales teams
More than 50 demo requests on their website
CastorDoc - a data catalog
Data-focused companies that use cloud data warehouses like Snowflake, BigQuery, Redshift, Databricks, along with Business Intelligence tools such as Looker, Tableau, or Soda. These are growing companies with data teams of over 10 members.
Industries include:
Fintech
E-commerce
SaaS
Bonus: Involve Your Data Team If You Have One
In my current role at Agorapulse, I’m fortunate to have a data team to assist.
They're crafting lists based on technographic and firmographic insights. Plus, they monitor how our customers utilize our app, their lifetime value, renewals, churn rates, and more.
If certain segments show high churn rates, it's wise to exclude them from your target list.
So, now our ICP refinement is grounded in hard data, not just opinions.
Remember, shaping your ICP isn’t a solo task.
All the GTM teams, including sales, marketing, CS, and product, should be engaged in this process.
So, there we go. Thanks for reading.
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Happy prospecting!
Elric
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