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Telling the stories of startup founders and creators and their unique journey. Each episode features actionable tips, practical advice and inspirational insight.
00:00:00:00 - 00:00:33:00
Welcome to the Founders Journey podcast. Inspiration education for Founders by Founders. Everyone welcome back. I'm Greg Moran from Evergreen Mountain Equity Partners and Evergreen Growth Partners, and the host of the Founders Journey podcast. Been a startup founder and CEO for 20 plus years. A few exits along the way. So I've been on this full journey a few times that you're probably in now or thinking about taking so today we're going to dive into one of my favorite topics.
00:00:33:00 - 00:00:57:17
I talk about so many of our videos. And I because I think it's one of the most crucial aspects of scaling any business. And that's identifying your ideal customer profile, your ICP for short. So if you want to know who your real customers are and how to target them effectively, stick around. Okay. First things first, what exactly is an ideal customer profile?
00:00:57:21 - 00:01:19:16
Simply put, your ICP is a detailed description of the type of customers that can really benefit most from your product or service. These are the people who are most likely to buy from you, who are most likely to renew. Stay loyal, and even advocate for your brand. These are the ones that you build success stories and case studies on and long term relationships with.
00:01:19:18 - 00:01:46:00
They really become the foundation for any great long term business. Why is this important? To really understand this, why not just sell to whoever will buy, right? Because knowing your ICP helps you focus your marketing efforts. Optimize your sales process. Really get your product roadmap dialed in and ultimately drive more revenue. It's like having a roadmap to your business.
00:01:46:00 - 00:02:12:04
Success is really what an ICP can be for you. So let's start with the data you already have. Look at your existing customer base and identify the common characteristics. What industries are they in? What roles do those individuals hold? What problems are common to all of the customers that you have today? What are those common characteristics that go between all of your kind of the customers?
00:02:12:04 - 00:02:36:10
That if you could replicate them, you would you surveys user interviews, use focus groups, use win loss reviews. You really want to ask questions that dig deep into their pain points, their needs, and their buying behaviors. So you could use tools like SurveyMonkey or forums that can be really helpful here. Just having phone calls one on one to say, hey, why did you buy from us?
00:02:36:10 - 00:02:57:23
Sometimes the easiest way to find out the pains they have is just simply ask or use a third party. I'm a huge advocate for using third party resources. Use a third party for this for to do this, these deep dives with customers and be a huge fan of it. It really makes it's really a good investment that you're going to get great information that you may not be able to get on your own.
00:02:58:02 - 00:03:17:08
Dive into your website and your social media analytics. Look at the demographics. Look at the interest. Look at the behaviors of people on your site. Get Google Analytics Facebook Insights these are great tools for this. There's a lot of other ones as well to really understand what people are talking about. What is your customer base, those those customers you would replicate?
00:03:17:10 - 00:03:37:10
What are they talking about out there on social media? Look at their profiles. Look at what are they commenting on? What are they talking about? You want to develop detailed buyer personas based on your research. So you want to include information on things like, you know, what's the average age which the job title, what's the company size? What?
00:03:37:12 - 00:04:00:20
What are their goals? What are their challenges? Maybe even hobbies. Just again, this is going to really depend on your market a little bit, but the more detailed profile of the buyer persona that you can build, the better. It's impossible to go too deep here. So once you have your ICP, you want to test it out. You want to run targeted marketing campaigns and see how they perform.
00:04:00:22 - 00:04:23:18
Gather feedback. Refine your ICP as needed. There's great ways to very quickly test and ICP all candor. Evergreen Growth Partners has an outsourced BDR function that can be turned up very quickly to, to test out an ICP. There are other ways to do this as well. Just to make sure you're hitting the right, the right targets.
00:04:23:20 - 00:04:42:00
But you want to be able to test this out because you want to gather feedback, and then you want to refine the ICP as needed. So again, this is an ongoing iterative process, by the way. Once you take care of your ICP nailed, you're going to need to change again because markets evolve. This is a this is a nonstop process of optimization iteration.
00:04:42:01 - 00:05:05:05
So let's look at an example. Let's say versus company offering product management tools. Your ICP might be mid-sized tech companies with remote teams. The decision makers could be project managers or seat or CTOs who are all struggling with team collaboration. Right. That's the that's the pain point. If you're running an e-commerce store selling, say, eco friendly products, your ICP will be very different.
00:05:05:07 - 00:05:28:13
Could be environmentally conscious millennials who live in urban areas. They really looking at their value, sustainability. They're willing to pay a premium for green products again. There's a great deal from market to market, but getting really clear and deep on those, within that ICP to really understand what your customers actually care about. That's that's the important part of it.
00:05:28:13 - 00:05:46:17
You want to get as deep as as possible about what they care about. So to wrap it up, identifying your ideal customer profile is about understanding who your best customers are, the ones you want to replicate, and then how to reach them and how to speak to them. So you want to use data. You want to use research.
00:05:46:17 - 00:06:05:00
You want to use analytics to create detailed buyer personas. And then don't forget you want to validate and you want to iterate. And once you think you've got it, you're going to do it again because markets change and evolve. So if you found this video helpful, make sure you hit the like button. You subscribe for more insights on scaling your business.
00:06:05:02 - 00:06:19:05
If you have any questions or want to share your own tips on identifying your ICP, I would love to hear them! Drop them in the comments. Thanks for watching and we'll see you in the next video.