The ideal customer is your “dream customer”, the kind of customer that would find your products to be a perfect fit for their needs, and that would be receptive to your marketing and sales efforts and be able and willing to buy from you.
The ideal customer profile is important to help all the revenue teams like marketing, sales, and customer service to focus on the customers the business is designed to serve. This doesn’t mean that you wouldn’t market, sell, or provide customer service to other kinds of customers. However, having an ideal customer profile helps teams to prioritize efforts. This is important because trying to attract the wrong audience is a waste of money if you don’t have the right products for them or don’t know how to sell to them, and selling to the wrong customers is a waste of time and money because they will not be satisfied with the product or the price.
When to do this step: After you identify the market.
If you don’t have customers yet, your ideal customer profile might be just a guess. That’s ok. Write down what you think and test it as you develop your business.
You’ll also want to come back to this step after you get some customers and figure out what’s working and what’s not working, and who your best customers are. A refined ideal customer profile helps your revenue team connect with the right audiences and sell to the right customers.
To create a useful ideal customer profile, focus on the questions and answers that will help your teams make smart decisions. For example:
- Where are they? (online, specific country or region)
- What are their needs and problems?
- What is their budget for buying a solution to their problem?
- What other products and services do they use? (for any reason)
- What language do they speak?
- What is their age range or phase of life? (kids, teens, 30’s, 40’s, elderly, etc.)
- What is their relationship status?
- What kind of job do they have?
- What is their annual income?
For business customers you might also ask:
- What industry are they in?
- How many employees do they have?
- How many customers do they have?
- What is their annual revenue?
- What is their budget for buying a solution to their problem?
- What is their technology stack?
Compass
When you have at least a first draft of the ideal customer profile, continue to market research.
Back to top – steps to start a new business.
See more about identifying the market, executive activities, and revenue activities.