{"id":2293,"date":"2020-06-26T17:17:17","date_gmt":"2020-06-26T15:17:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/woodpecker.co\/blog\/?p=2293"},"modified":"2026-02-24T15:29:35","modified_gmt":"2026-02-24T14:29:35","slug":"ideal-customer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/woodpecker.co\/blog\/ideal-customer\/","title":{"rendered":"What Does \u201cIdeal\u201d Really Mean in the Ideal Customer Profile?"},"content":{"rendered":"

We treat ICP (ideal customer profile) seriously at Woodpecker<\/a>. We constantly work on the profile and try to keep it updated. That’s\u00a0not an easy task, because the profile evolves as the company<\/span> grows and the business situation changes. Our Customer Success Team runs regular meetings concerning ICP. On one of those\u00a0meetings, we realized that the “ideal” may actually be a set of various traits, depending on the point of view. See what we’ve figured out in terms of defining our ideal customer profile.<\/p>\n

Lincoln Murphy’s ICP Framework<\/h2>\n

We’re developing our ICP on the basis of the framework proposed by Lincoln Murphy<\/strong>. If you haven’t read that yet, that’s the moment to do that. Here’s the link to Lincoln’s ICP framework<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I won’t be able to analyze ICP better than Lincoln. That’s for sure. But I wanted to share with you how the theory gets verified in practice on our own example.<\/p>\n

Lincoln’s ICP includes 7 baseline characteristics that a B2B<\/span> company<\/span> should consider while trying to define their ideal customer.<\/p>\n

What are the ideal customer criteria?<\/h3>\n

An ideal customer should:<\/p>\n

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  1. be ready<\/strong> to solve a problem they have<\/li>\n
  2. be willing<\/strong>\u00a0to solve the\u00a0problem<\/li>\n
  3. be able<\/strong> to solve the problem<\/li>\n
  4. have success potential<\/strong><\/li>\n
  5. be characterized by\u00a0acquisition efficiency<\/strong><\/li>\n
  6. have ascension potential<\/strong><\/li>\n
  7. have customer-driven growth potential<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Our reverse\u00a0engineering method<\/h2>\n

    In an attempt to verify\u00a0our customer profile, some time ago we\u00a0decided to take a look at our first 100\u00a0customers and try to choose 10 that are the best fit for the\u00a0ideal customer profile we had previously assumed.<\/p>\n

    There were 5 meeting members: yours truly (marketing), Wojtek and Vovik (sales<\/span>), Greg (support), Matt (CEO \u2013<\/span>\u00a0product, and general bigger picture perspective). Each of us was supposed to take a look at the current customers and choose the top 10 for the ideal customer title.<\/p>\n

    And that was the moment when we realized: we’re not really sure about the criteria of the “ideal contest”. Shouldn’t we specify some common criteria first? We felt confused.<\/p>\n

    Greg, the coordinator of the ICP activities at Woodpecker<\/span> and\u00a0the leader of the meeting, explained that his idea was not to set the common criteria. On purpose. It was about verifying our definitions of “ideal”, and then checking which companies<\/span> match the most of the “ideal” top tens. In practice, this is where statistical lookalike modeling<\/a> becomes useful\u2014validating which traits actually correlate with success, then finding and prioritizing prospects that score similarly instead of relying on surface-level similarities.<\/span><\/p>\n\"2016_09_14-Ideal_customer_profile-obrazek-01\"\n

    “Ideal” may have various meanings<\/h2>\n

    As it turned out in practice, the characteristics of the ideal customer may bear a different level of importance for various team members.<\/p>\n

    Marketing point of view<\/h3>\n

    From the marketing point of view, the ideal customer should not only feel the value from the product but should be eager to spread the word about the solution. They should be open to putting their logo design<\/a> on our website. What’s more, their brand and website should be impressive: we want some strong social proof that awesome companies<\/span> use our tool. When a new website visitor checks out our current customers, they should be impressed.<\/p>\n

    Even better if the ideal customer is friendly and open to marketing cooperation. At the point when we will need a video testimonial, they should be dying\u00a0to star in it. Ideally, they should be from the US or Western Europe, because that’s where we want more customers from \u2013 again, adequate social proof.<\/p>\n

    I’d say the ascension potential<\/strong> and the customer-driven growth potential<\/strong> from Lincoln’s framework is of great importance from the marketing perspective.<\/p>\n

    Sales point of view<\/h3>\n

    From the sales<\/span> point of view, the ideal customer should\u00a0be eager to buy the product \u2013 so the reps don’t have to spend weeks closing the deal. They should like all the features we already have and they shouldn’t have any sales<\/span> objections.<\/p>\n

    They should have the budget for more than one user account, ideally, they should be willing to buy\u00a0a subscription for their whole sales<\/span> team, and pay for a year in advance.<\/p>\n

    In the light of Lincoln’s framework, the characteristics of acquisition efficiency<\/strong> and being ready<\/strong>, willing<\/strong> and able<\/strong> to solve their problem seem to play the major part for the sales<\/span> team.<\/p>\n

    Support & product point of view<\/h3>\n

    From the support point of view, the ideal customer should be tech-savvy or have a person on their team that will be able to handle technical issues. They should know what they are doing when sending emails, understand the mechanisms behind email delivery and speak using some\u00a0technical terms.<\/p>\n

    They should be friendly and patient. They should\u00a0be open to receiving\u00a0advice and willing to learn. Ideally, they should come from the same or a similar time zone, so the requests from them don’t come in the middle of the night.<\/p>\n

    From the product\u00a0point of view, the ideal customer should be willing to offer feedback. They should not require a whole lot of new features to be added\u00a0to the solution. Instead, they should be fully satisfied with the features we’ve already implemented. They should see our product as a piece perfectly fitting their sales process puzzle.<\/p>\n

    For the support and product teams, the success potential<\/strong> is a very important trait of the ideal customer.<\/p>\n

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