What is Ideal customer profile (ICP)?

An ideal customer profile is a description of the kind of company that gets the most value from what you sell and is most likely to buy it.

Also called: ICP.

An ICP describes companies, not people: the trade, the location, the size, and the observable situation that makes your offer relevant. A buyer persona then describes the person inside that company who decides. For local businesses the two often collapse into one, because the owner is the buyer.

A useful ICP is testable against data. "Small businesses that need marketing" cannot be searched. "Tree services in Texas with a 4.5-star rating, 50+ reviews and no website" can be, and every business that matches has a visible reason to hear from a web designer.

Build it from your best existing customers: what they have in common in firmographics, what problem they had when they bought, and which ones paid fastest and stayed longest. Then check the size of the segment before committing; a perfect profile with forty matching businesses is a short campaign. See total addressable market.

The local business counter and lead list preview show how many businesses match a profile and what the first rows look like.