What is an ICP (Ideal Customer Profile): A Deep Dive into Crafting Your Perfect Customer Profile
June 26, 2024
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It’s November.
The buildings are strewn with holiday decorations, the snow is starting to fall, and Q4 feels like it’s flying by — meanwhile, you’re wondering how to maximize your efforts and time. Well, there’s one annual marketing habit that you may want to work into your annual Q4 routine in order to help you refine your focus, optimize your efforts, and hit the ground running on the other side of New Years, it’s your annual B2B marketing audit.
Years’ end is a crucial time to do an annual marketing audit. By assessing your marketing efforts thoroughly, you gain valuable insights into what worked and didn’t, and you can identify the weak areas in your marketing strategy. This will help you focus your resources on improving your marketing and achieving better results.
So grab your pumpkin spice latte and get cozy as we dig in to the “whys” and “hows” of getting (and interpreting) a proper marketing audit.
A B2B marketing audit is incredibly important. It’s like a trusty compass guiding you through the endless possibilities, making sure you’re on the right path. It gives you a complete picture of your marketing activities and shows you where you can shine even brighter. This exercise lets you see how well your strategies are working, find any weak spots, and revamp your efforts for even greater success. Get ready to level up and drive those amazing results!
A B2B marketing audit is the annual “inspection” your efforts require. It props up the “car” and takes a long good look “under the hood”. From assessing your digital presence to analyzing your messaging and brand positioning, it covers every touchpoint through which you engage with your target audience. This comprehensive evaluation provides a 360-degree view of your marketing efforts and helps you identify performance gaps across the entire customer journey.
There are three right answers to this question:
1. Now.
2. At the end of every year.
3. At the beginning of any new product launch or redefined goal.
4. Anytime you experience stagnant growth or a drop in results.
Why now? Well, if your asking yourself “when should I do this?” and you’ve never done one before — the answer is, do one right away. Whether you’ve been in business one year or ten, its always going to be crucial to make sure your marketing machinery is built right.
Beyond that, it’s ideal to perform periodic audits to ensure that your strategies and tactics are aligned with your evolving business goals. You may also consider conducting an audit when you’re about to make a significant investment in marketing initiatives or when you’re experiencing stagnant growth. By identifying areas of improvement, you can allocate your B2B marketing budget more effectively, resulting in maximum return on investment.
Deciding whether to audit yourself or use a marketing audit service depends on various factors. If you have the necessary expertise and resources within your organization, auditing yourself can be a cost-effective option. It allows you to have complete control over the process and tailor it to your specific needs. However, if you lack the expertise or time to conduct a thorough audit, outsourcing the task to a marketing audit service can be beneficial. They have specialized knowledge and experience in conducting audits, ensuring a comprehensive analysis of your marketing strategies and identifying areas for improvement. Ultimately, the decision between auditing yourself or using a marketing audit service should be based on your organization’s capabilities and requirements.
If you’ve determined that you’ve got the team, tools and time to do your own marketing budget, that’s great! Here’s a guide to each step in your marketing audit process.
To start, we recommend you set aside a specific amount of time, say two weeks, and allocate some budget to use some tools to help you. Doing a proper B2B marketing audit should not be considered a side task. If you want it done right (ie: if you want to be able to trust the conclusions) you need to invest in making sure it’s a priority for a little while.
Once you’re set up — here’s how to run your audit (complete with tool recommendations)
[Click here for a downloadable cheat sheet version of this DIY guide.]
Auditing your strategy is fundamentally about questioning your own (research-backed) earlier assumptions. Its a necessary pause in time to go back and check all the conclusions you came to about who you’re targeting, what their pain points are and if you’re still having the same conversation.
Some areas of your strategy to revisit are:
Your strategy is the backbone of your GTM, so it’s important that you take time to review all your conclusions and make sure they line up. Once you’ve worked through that it’s time to “check your pipes”, so to speak, or as we say “check your pipeline”.
Yes. I just asked that incredibly basic question. And I cannot tell you how often the answer to that question is, “no”.
How do you know if you have goals? Here’s a check-in on the universally beloved “SMART” criteria for determining if the outcome you’re measuring is a real goal:
S: Specific –> that is, it is one set of numbers (one metric) — not a “broad outcome”.
M: Measurable –> you must have a validated tool for counting this goal.
A: Achievable –> you need to know you can realistically reach this number within a given time.
R: Relevant –> this should be self-explanatory
T: Time-bound –> Set a start date and an end date for your campaign.
Taking stock of your marketing channels is a critical step in evaluating the effectiveness of your marketing strategy. Let’s break down each asset to ensure you’re maximizing your potential for lead generation and brand growth.
Think of your website as your digital storefront. It’s often the first point of contact between your company and potential clients. Ask yourself: Does it embody your brand’s essence? Is it an accurate reflection of your company’s positioning in the market? Ensure that the website’s design is not only aesthetically pleasing and follows design best practices but also communicates your value proposition clearly. The messaging should resonate deeply with your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) and compel them to engage further with your brand.
Pillar pages and landing pages are the backbone of your website’s lead conversion process. They need to do more than just inform; they must persuade visitors to take action. Check if these pages are optimized to convert visitors into leads. This can be through effective Call-To-Actions (CTAs), easy-to-find contact forms, and strategically gated content that offers value in exchange for contact details. Each element should work in harmony to guide the visitor towards becoming a lead. There’s benefits to leveraging keyword groups on this page as well. Making sure you rank for a number of high impact relevant key terms will help you outrank your competitors.
Your presence on social media and other brand assets must speak in unison, carrying a consistent message across all platforms. They play a pivotal role in building your marketing funnel by maintaining the ‘Rule of Seven’, which states that a prospect needs to ‘touch’ or experience your brand at least seven times before they are ready to purchase. Ensure that your content across these touchpoints is cohesive, engaging, and tailored to guide your audience through the buyer’s journey.
The right tracking and reporting tools are indispensable. They function like a high-powered lens, giving you a clear and comprehensive view of your marketing funnel’s performance. With these tools, you can measure the success of your campaigns, understand customer behavior, and make data-driven decisions. Without these tools — you’re guessing.
Too many companies make pivotal business and investment choices around incorrect, incomplete or misinterpreted pieces of data. It is absolutely essential to build a well-structured tech stack for tracking and gathering data — and then using those tools to generate reports.
Examine the alignment and consistency of your messaging across all platforms. It’s like conducting an orchestra; every instrument must be in tune for a harmonious performance. Your brand’s positioning and engagement level at different stages of the funnel should sing the same tune, whether it’s the first impression or the final pitch. Consistent messaging reinforces your brand’s narrative and fosters trust with your audience.
Segmenting your content by the stages of awareness, consideration, and decision is akin to a skilled chef preparing a multi-course meal, where each dish complements the next. Do you have a content plan that serves up the right mix of informational (awareness), evaluative (consideration), and conclusive (decision) content? This approach ensures that you’re addressing the needs and questions of your ICPs and personas at each pivotal moment of their buyer’s journey. A common weakness in marketing is an incoherent and disorganized content funnel that doesn’t answer your prospective buyer’s questions at the right times and places.
It’s essential to be crystal clear about what you want your buyers to know and understand about your brand, company, and solutions. This clarity acts as a beacon, guiding them safely through their journey with your brand. By illuminating the path, you help them grasp not just the functional attributes of your offerings, but the core values and mission of your company, which can be pivotal in their decision-making process.
Scrutinize the efficiency of your paid media campaigns. Are they just a cost center, or are they profitable investments? You should be confident that your paid media efforts are not only capturing demand but also generating a positive return on investment (ROI). Regularly track performance metrics and adjust your strategies accordingly to maximize your marketing spend.
Pro Tip: Analyzing your paid media effectively involves understanding what the norms and benchmarks are for your industry. It really does require a deeper understanding of advertising strategy. It’s an area where we really recommend hiring a specialist (if you’re not already working with a paid ads team).
Your budget should be correlated to your growth goals. This is to say, if you’re setting ambitious goals or aspiring for something like month-on-month growth: you better budget for month:on: monthly spending increases. While optimizing all your efforts for maximum efficiency is definitely important, it’s much more important to simply accept that marketing costs money and to be willing to allocate the necessary funds across all your channels.
Evaluating whether you’re using the right channels to engage with your audience is akin to choosing the right fishing spots; you need to be where the fish are biting. Each channel you use should be a strategic choice based on where your target audience spends their time and how they prefer to engage on that particular channel. Analyze your channel performance to ensure that you’re not just broadcasting messages, but also engaging in meaningful conversations with potential customers.
Pro Tip: Keep in mind that effective campaigns are not always straightforward. Sometimes you might choose to run an ad simply to warm up your potential (but super cold) audience — knowing that you’ll be remarketing them lower in the funnel. Too many people relate to paid ads as a “one-and-done” game and get frustrated when they can’t quickly connect revenue to Cost Per Click %.
High-quality leads are the lifeblood of your sales pipeline, so it’s important to develop criteria that help you measure lead quality accurately. This involves looking beyond quantity and focusing on the potential of leads to convert into paying customers. Use lead scoring models and feedback from your sales team to continually refine your understanding of what makes a lead ‘sales-ready’.
We hope that this walk-thru has inspired and empowered you. Now it’s time to decide how to proceed. Embarking on the pivotal task of conducting a B2B marketing audit is a significant undertaking, one that can redefine the trajectory of your marketing efforts. As you stand at this crossroads, the decision to go the DIY route or to enlist the expertise of a marketing agency is paramount.
Here are a few questions to ask yourself in order to decide what the best choice is for you:
To make the process of conducting a marketing audit more streamlined, consider utilizing a free marketing audit report template. We hope this guide has helped you to develop a sense of what you need to do and that you’ll bookmark it and use it every quarter.
You can also click here to download a handy quick reference checklist.
A b2b marketing audit will help you whether you’re looking to increase lead generation, refine your brand messaging, or allocate your B2B marketing budget more effectively. At StepUp we do powerful, informed audits for all our clients — and then deliver Go-To-Market Execution Strategies that drive leads and produce results. Reach out now to learn more!
