The ability to build an Ideal Client Profile (ICP), accurately calculate the main needs of a potential buyer or service consumer, and accurately select among all candidates the one who especially needs you at the moment is a kind of art, but mastering it promises such dividends that well worth the time spent and effort. Today, I propose to talk about the rules for constructing an ICP and its use for conversion in sales.

What is the point of building an Ideal Client Profile? This is an essential business tool, without which regular product promotion is impossible. As the head of an agency with a certificate for bpo and operating in several business niches at once, I clearly understand its importance.

A simple example: you decide to open a cafe. Moreover, you have the opportunity to choose from three options on where to do this:

• In Cairo, near the pyramids in 40-degree heat;
• In one of the popular retail chains;
• In one of the northern capitals like Helsinki or Copenhagen.

Logically, a cafe will be more popular where the weather drives people to your establishment. They represent the ideal client profile – the ones most likely to come to you for warmth and comfort.

If, instead of coffee, you sell air mattresses, your Ideal Client Profile is beach vacationers. Ice cream for pedestrians tired of the summer heat. Creative techniques for digital products – executives of companies that need them, etc. Offer your products to those who want them right now, and sales will skyrocket.

– “So, this is the Target Audience! Why denote the same phenomenon by different terms? – you exclaim, and you will be wrong.

The target audience of a coffee shop with croissants is, without exception, lovers of caffeinated drinks and fresh baked goods, who may come to your place for lunch, or may change their mind and head to the hot dog cart. On the other hand, ICP represents the portrait of the “ideal client” – someone who desperately needs a hot drink.

While running a firm outsourcing, I have well mastered the art of drawing up an ICP and now, I will try to fit it into a clear framework that will immediately help you understand what to look for and how to apply it.

Look at your customer base with fresh eyes, and then try to match each customer to one of four segments:

• A – those who contact you regularly, make large orders, do not bother you with additional questions, and conclude transactions easily and quickly;
• B – a client who is clearly interested in your product/services, transfers payment without problems but periodically expresses doubts and delays the transaction process;
• C – a person whose cooperation with you is beneficial but not particularly necessary, therefore he pays reluctantly and little and the conclusion of transactions is delayed;
• D – a client who torments the consultant with questions, who makes many complaints, is not interested in the product and generally unclear as to why he came.

Now the fun begins. You need to conduct an in-depth analysis of the companies in each segment and identify their commonalities. This will allow you to create a portrait of both the best (A) and the least promising (D) client. During the analysis process, it is important to use as much data as possible, which will be collected either by you or hired marketing outsource specialists:

• All information about the company itself at your disposal;
• Data about the decision-maker, his psychology, factors influencing his decision-making;
• Demographic data – age, gender, income of people involved in decision-making.

Publicly available data is inexpensive. Firstly, your competitors know them too, and secondly, you won’t achieve much based on a superficial analysis, so look for ways to find expanded information about the company you are interested in to understand what distinguishes it from others.

The first thing to do is scour Facebook and Linkedin groups for business, check out Builtwith and Crunchbase, and search Glassdoor and other job boards for jobs posted by your client. This will give you something to think about.

Find out how many remote employees and offices the company has in different cities/countries – this will show its willingness to cooperate with companies operating in other geographical locations.

The management of any company today uses social networks to communicate with clients, partners and other industry entities. Go on Twitter or Facebook and you can find out a lot of interesting things. When I created my outsource agency, I did not choose Instagram. However, the network can be useful.

Ideal Client Profile is ready. At this point, you need to confirm or refute it with practical actions, provoking the objects of study to respond. For example, send letters or emails to these audiences and observe their reaction.

If you are not satisfied, reconsider the ICP. Rewrite the letter, replace some paragraphs, add something, remove something. Polish it again and again, repeat the campaign periodically, until the increase in conversion signals to you that the ICP has finally been created. As an example: when writing the first letters with a proposal for organizing small call centre, I rewrote them dozens of times until I learned to hit the bull’s eye.

But don't rush to celebrate your victory. The compiled profile corresponds only to this specific product of your company and is only current.

Be prepared to review your ICP every few months and make adjustments to ensure you don't lose conversions.

If you are going to enter the market without having an established client base, as we did, having decided to cross the borders of your country and conquer the European outsourcing industry, or perhaps you are just thinking about how to promote a new product, creating an Ideal Client Profile will be more difficult.

Answer yourself a series of questions:

• What “pain” does your product relieve?
• Which potential clients feel it?
• How can you remove it?

After studying the answers of 2-3 dozen respondents, you will get an idea of which direction to move.