Empower your marketing and sales intelligence: Distinguish between ICP and BP

Author: Gautam Mane

Marketing managers need to prioritize the abilities of their product offerings and match with the ‘right fit’ for revenue generation, despite competition. This approach can consistently bring positive results. The trick lies in creating an Ideal Customer Profile first, and then tapping the actual Buyer Persona. 

Understanding the ICP tool

Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) can be simply described as the potential profile of the client for account-based marketing or company in case of B2B marketing. This is not just one template we are dealing with, and it varies with your business goals and objectives. Creating this profile helps you to distinguish which person/company is most likely to do business with you for long. The sales and marketing force needs to be aware of the vision and strategies to target appropriate customers and not waste efforts.

Knowing the bouquet of products enables the sales force to create an ICP.

1. Who would purchase your products at a company level?
2. Know the company, revenue and employee size. Its business model should be crucial to sell your products.
3. Is it at a mature stage to do business with you? How old is it? Is it a startup or unsteady business requiring credit or one matured in the market and capable to make immediate payments?
4. Who has a power of decision making for buying? Large corporates have a long cycle or gestation period, and doing business is cumbersome.
5. The most important factor is, the need for the product exclusively from your company. This is often the clincher in the deal to make the ideal customer profile.

Buyer Persona tool

A buyer could be an individual (business to customer) or at the company level B2B. When this tool is created, it focuses on the end-user. There are many opportunities that a sales team get when they have clarity of the buyer persona. Instead of hitting blind darts they know when the buyer needs the products and gets them delivered. The efforts are focused on meeting the supplies rather than prospecting.

The following steps are useful to create the right buyer persona.

1. Look at the existing customer base and distinguish a clear and common pattern of their behavior and requirement for your products.
2. Keep an eye for lost opportunities and how they can be revived.
3. Understand the psyche of the decision maker and what changes can be incorporated to keep him moving away from competition and closer to you.
4. Communication lines should always be open to keep them happy.
5. The buyer’s professional buying background and behavior define their interests in your products.

Over time, you will be able to sift the ICP and BP when new products are launched or there are changes in the existing offerings. The sales and marketing teams need to prepare documents of both before actually going out in the field.

Begin by outlining the Ideal Customer Profile – the first step of making a strong sales and marketing intelligence base.

Next read: Is an Ideal Customer Profile the true north for better marketing?