 Before you get started building your business, an important first step is to create an ideal customer profile. Your ICP describes your perfect customer. Written as one individual, it’s not the only person who will buy from you, but the best. This is who you should focus your marketing efforts on trying to reach. The data in your ICP determines every decision that comes afterward, so it’s important to create this profile first and foremost. What Your ICP Should Include A good ideal customer profile includes two types of data: demographic and psychographic. Demographic data tells you who your target audience is. It includes things like age, location, economic status, marital status, language, and so on. Psychographic data tells you how people think, feel, and behave, and it’s a bit trickier to obtain. However, this information is in many ways even more important than demographics. You should try to learn as much as possible about your ideal customer’s core values, their beliefs, their aspirations, and the problems and issues they face so you can help solve them. Know Your Business Creating your ICP should be guided by knowledge about your company. You can already tell somewhat who your products and services best serve. Consider what you offer. Who would benefit best from it? Figure out your unique strengths and create a unique value proposition. This is a statement that describes specifically what you do and what sets you apart from other similar businesses. If you’re already in business, look at your current customers and identify your biggest brand advocates. These are the individuals who buy most from you and interact most with you. In addition to past and current customers, you may also consider where you want your business to go. What will you be offering a year from now and who is the target market for that? Collect and Analyze Data A good ideal customer profile contains objective data, not assumptions. You have to connect with your target market and gather this data from them. You can get data on your target market both directly and indirectly. Direct methods include asking questions, holding focus groups, running surveys and polls, and so on. Indirect methods include looking at social media profiles, watching and participating in online discussions, and looking at metrics such as web traffic and sales data. Building Your Ideal Customer Profile Is Ongoing Once you have a good ideal customer profile, you’re ready to get started planning your marketing strategy. But creating an ICP is a task that’s never truly finished. There may be changes in the market or changes in your business that will require you to update your ICP. Keep collecting data about your target market and revise accordingly. Gradually, your profile will become increasingly refined and effective. Do you want to learn more about getting to know your audience? Check out this course in Innovate Academy Memberships: CREATE YOUR IDEAL CUSTOMER PROFILE, which teaches you the A to Z of creating an effective ideal customer profile and helps you achieve your business goals. HEAD OVER TO INNOVATE ACADEMY AND REGISTER TODAY! Use Coupon code “member20” for $30 off per month for 6 months. Regular Price $79 with code $49 per month 
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 Your ideal customer profile is the foundation of everything in your business. It informs all your sales and marketing activities. You need to know your customer well before you can meet their needs with your unique products and services. Once you have a solid ICP, here’s what you do with it. What Is an Ideal Customer Profile? An ideal customer profile is a representation of the perfect fit for your business’s offerings. It’s not the only person who will buy from you, but the one who is most likely to, and therefore this is where you should focus your marketing efforts. It includes demographic information as well as the person’s attitude, beliefs, and concerns. Clarifying Your Marketing Message Your marketing needs to speak directly to your audience and their needs. You have a solution to their problem, and you need to speak to them in their language. The data your profile yields is essential for understanding how to communicate with your audience. Even if you have a truly wonderful product that perfectly meets their needs, the wrong messaging won’t reach them. Targeting Ads The data in your ICP is essential when designing an ad campaign. You can choose the parameters of your ad according to customer demographics. The better you know these demographics, the more narrowly you can target and get your ads in front of the right people. This helps you get the best value for your ad dollars. Choosing Marketing Channels Successful marketing involves going to your target audience, engaging with them, and putting your offerings in front of them. In order to figure out where your potential customers hang out online, you need a firm grasp on who they are. Your ideal customer profile is used to do this. Lead Scoring Lead scoring is an analytical process businesses use to evaluate how likely it is that a lead will convert to a paying customer. When you start engaging with a new prospect, you can use your ICP to determine whether they’ll buy and how much of your resources are worth trying to sell to them. Setting Product Prices Your ideal customer profile includes you customer’s attitude toward spending money and making purchases. You need to know this in order to set the right prices that are low enough your customer will buy but high enough to accurately reflect their image of your product’s value. Your Position in the Market Even similar businesses that offer similar products and services have slightly different customer bases. Your ICP will help you understand how your customers are different. Even more importantly, it shows you how your products and services uniquely meet their needs. This is an important element in competitor analysis. The first step to doing all of the above is to create a detailed ideal customer profile that includes demographic information about who your audience members are, but also data about their values, attitudes, aspirations, and issues. Do you want to learn more about getting to know your audience? Check out this course in Innovate Academy Memberships: CREATE YOUR IDEAL CUSTOMER PROFILE, which teaches you the A to Z of creating an effective ideal customer profile and helps you achieve your business goals. HEAD OVER TO INNOVATE ACADEMY AND REGISTER TODAY! Use Coupon code “member20” for $30 off per month for 6 months. Regular Price $79 with code $49 per month   The first step to creating an effective marketing strategy is to get to know your customer. You can do this by creating an ideal customer profile. Since your ICP informs everything you do after, it’s important to make sure it’s effective and accurate. Here are the 6 most common mistakes businesses make when crafting their ICP. Basing Your Ideal Customer Profile on Assumptions You may know a great deal about your customers, but you need objective data from the market, not just assumptions. Your assumptions could be wrong or could be missing something vital. Once you start researching your target audience, you may encounter some surprises. There might be trends you hadn’t noticed before. Not Being Specific Your ideal customer profile should identify one single individual who benefits most from your products and services. This isn’t the only person who will buy from you, but the ideal person to focus your resources on trying to reach. If you try to be everything for everyone, you’ll end up pleasing no one. Ignoring Patterns As you go about creating your ideal customer profile, you’ll start seeing patterns. You should take note of all these trends and include them, even if they don’t seem strictly relevant to your business. All information could be useful in crafting your marketing message and targeted advertising. Forgetting Psychological Data When we think of customer profiles, it’s natural to think of demographics such as age, location, and income level. But don’t forget to also include psychological factors such as core values, buying behavior, and dreams and aspirations. In fact, this information could be even more important. You need to make an emotional connection with your target market. Your marketing should speak to their values, beliefs, and challenges. This is how you demonstrate the ways your offering can benefit them. Failing to Gather Indirect Data Reaching out to customers and holding focus groups are excellent ways to get data from your target audience. But don’t forget to also obtain indirect data. People won’t always tell you what you need to know if you ask them. On the other hand, you can listen to their conversations and watch their behavior to learn even more about them. Setting It and Forgetting It Once you have a strong ideal customer profile based on objective data from your market, you’re ready to get started offering your products and services to them. But your ICP is not something you can simply set once and then forget about. You’ll have to revise your ICP occasionally due to changes in the market or your customers’ tastes. When you launch a new product or service, you’ll have to adjust accordingly. It’s also helpful to brush up your ICP from time to time with new information from the market. Keep in steady touch with your customers so you can keep your ideal customer profile and marketing strategy up to date. Do you want to learn more about getting to know your audience? Check out this course in Innovate Academy Memberships: CREATE YOUR IDEAL CUSTOMER PROFILE, which teaches you the A to Z of creating an effective ideal customer profile and helps you achieve your business goals. HEAD OVER TO INNOVATE ACADEMY AND REGISTER TODAY! Use Coupon code “member20” for $30 off per month for 6 months. Regular Price $79 with code $49 per month   Your ideal customer profile is the foundation of your business. It’s based on objective data gleaned through feedback from your market, not your own assumptions. You need spend time gathering this information on who benefits most from your products and services in order to create the perfect profile. Your Current Customer Base Where do you get this data? Start by looking at your current customer base. Focus on the people who buy from you and interact with you the most. These are your biggest brand advocates and they’re the closest to your ideal customer. A good place to find out about your biggest brand advocates is your social media following. Identify the people who engage most with you and check out their profiles to gather demographic information. Read their content and comments to find out what’s on their mind. Online Forums and Groups Join online forums and groups on topics related to your products and services. On these sites, you can get to know people who can benefit from your offerings and listen to and participate in conversations where people are asking questions, giving their opinions, and seeking help. Keyword Search You can learn a great deal about your ideal customer by performing keyword searches on terms related to your business. Look for user-generated content such as reviews or blog comments. Even better, search for hashtags on social media. Hashtags are used as topic markers and make these terms searchable. Once you start looking around, you’ll find hashtags related to your business that are trending right now. Similar Businesses Another place to look for information on your target audience is your in similar businesses. See who follows them and buys from them. Read reviews of their products. You’ll not only learn about your market and their tastes, but also find out where they’re dissatisfied with your other similar businesses and the ways you’re different. Analytics and Tracking You can get indirect feedback by looking at your website analytics. Find out which pages receive the most traffic and where visitors are spending the most time. This will reveal what content is interesting to them. You can also use this data for planning future content to share with your audience. Your Product or Service In addition to feedback from your market, look closely at what you offer, what problems it solves, and how it’s unique. With a clear understanding of your target market’s tastes and concerns, along with the offerings of your competitors, you should be able to more easily see how your products uniquely meet your customers’ needs. Meet Your Customers’ Needs The key to success is to meet the needs of your target audience. Start with a firm grasp of who your audience is and the issues they face, and then you can figure out how to position your products and services to show how you meet those needs. Do you want to learn more about your target audience? Check out this course in Innovate Academy Memberships: CREATE YOUR IDEAL CUSTOMER PROFILE, which teaches you the A to Z of creating an effective ideal customer profile and helps you achieve your business goals. HEAD OVER TO INNOVATE ACADEMY AND REGISTER TODAY! Use Coupon code “member20” for $30 off per month for 6 months. Regular Price $79 with code $49 per month   All customers aren’t made equal. Some will buy from you and some won’t. What if you spend all your time, energy, and ad dollars on the ones who won’t buy? If you try to appeal to everyone, you’ll end up appealing to no one, so it’s essential to target the right people. Your ideal customer profile helps you do that. Your ICP informs all the major decisions you’ll make, so it’s an important first step. What Information Your Ideal Customer Profile Needs Your ideal customer profile needs two types of data – demographic and psychographic. Demographics tell who your ideal buyer is. It includes information like age, geographic location, language, marital status, earnings, family, education level, and lifestyle. Even though all this information might not seem strictly relevant to your business, it should be included if there are trends. Psychographic information is your buyer’s behavior, values, aspirations, and attitudes. Pay attention especially to their buying behavior, such as how they make purchases, how much money they spend, how they feel about spending money. It’s also important to find out what problems your audience faces. Look for challenges or issues they’re trying to overcome. If you can provide the help they need, they’ll become loyal customers. Objective Data, Not Assumptions The data in your ICP needs to be based on objective feedback from the market, not just your assumptions. You might already have a gut feeling about who your target market is. You can tell some things about them by looking at your products and services and the problems they solve. However, you need to research and use objective data as much as possible. As you discover more about your audience, there will be some surprises along the way. If it’s all based on assumptions, you might miss the mark. How to Learn about Your Market and Build Your ICP You can obtain this objective data through direct and indirect methods. Direct methods include interacting and engaging with your audience. Listen to their conversations. Ask questions and start conversations. Run polls and surveys. Reach out to people and create opportunities for you to learn about them. Indirect methods are important as well. There are some things people won’t tell you, but you can learn through their behavior. Look at website metrics, social media activity, buying behavior, and how they interact with similar businesses. How to Use Your Ideal Customer Profile Your ICP is essential because it crafts your marketing message. Your message needs to speak directly to your audience and in order to do that, you need to know them well. You’ll also use it for ad targeting. When you create ads, you can choose parameters based on the demographics of your buyer persona. It will determine what content you create and help you understand which leads are worth putting resources into pursuing. Do you want to learn more about reaching the right audience with the right message? Check out this course in Innovate Academy Memberships: CREATE YOUR IDEAL CUSTOMER PROFILE which teaches you the A to Z of creating an effective ideal customer profile and helps you achieve your business goals. HEAD OVER TO INNOVATE ACADEMY AND REGISTER TODAY! Use Coupon code “member20” for $30 off per month for 6 months. Regular Price $79 with code $49 per month.   To establish a brand requires a great deal of time and effort, along with some strategic thinking. You certainly don’t want to put in all the work for it not to have good success. Since this is an area of business that’s easily misunderstood, here are the biggest mistakes people make with branding so you can avoid them. Forgetting to Think Strategically Branding is part of your overall business plan, so you need to think strategically about it. It needs to connect to your “why” and your broader business goals. Go back and review the reasons why you’re running this business. Take some time to clarify what you hope to achieve and how your branding will help you do this. Your Brand Is Not Your Logo Many businesses make the huge mistake of thinking a brand is a logo or a set of design features. While consistent design is an important part of branding, what it’s really about is your messaging and the image you’re creating in the minds of your target market. This message tells people how your offerings uniquely benefit them. Being Generic The whole point of your brand is to differentiate your business from others in the market. If you can do this successfully, you can operate as efficiently as other companies that have more resources to spend on marketing and advertising. Focus not only on what you do but what you do differently than others. Assumptions Instead of Facts Don’t make the mistake of building your brand based on assumptions. You think you know how people see your company, but this isn’t good enough. You need to conduct thorough marketing research and base your decisions on facts and feedback from your audience. Inconsistency and Disconnect If your branding is giving people mixed messages, it won’t work to engender trust. The message needs to be consistent wherever you have communication with your audience. The design features, the tone, and the unique benefits of using your products all need to be consistent. Clever But Not Clear While it’s nice to have a message that’s unique and clever, the most important thing is for it to be clear. Branding is a form of communication. People should understand your message easily at a glance. Don’t get so creative that it becomes hard to understand. It’s All About You While you’re talking about your products and services, the real message of your branding should be what using your products does for your customers. Focus on their needs and how their lives will be improved by using your product. Forgetting to Update The needs of your market and the business landscape change over time. Your business might also change, offering a new product line or reaching out to a new segment in the market. When this happens, your branding needs to reflect these changes. Sometimes, you need to assess and update. Do you want to learn more about getting your branding right? Meet Trey Simon, Brand Performance Coach Hey, I’m Trey Simon. Within the past 15 years, I’ve helped hundreds of entrepreneurs turn vague ideas into clear-cut visions which generate leads & sales month after month. It’s finally time for you to get into the driver seat of your business, with our help of leveraging social media platforms, SEO tactics, email marketing automation strategies as well as untouchable creative design. To work with me, schedule a 1-on-1 demo to learn more about developing your brand identity and using the right online marketing tools: HERE About the Author Pat Simes is a Business Strategist, blogger and Founder of Innovative Business Solutions and Innovate Academy. She currently resides in the Midwest and is committed to inspiring and empowering entrepreneurs to transform their vision to reality.   Storytelling is highly effective in any kind of business. Stories capture the attention of your audience and make your business relatable. This is why they’re so useful in rebranding. An essential part of any rebranding strategy is to develop and tell a good brand story. Why We Love Storytelling Why is storytelling so important in branding? Your brand needs to be memorable and relatable. It needs to impart your company’s personality and emphasize how you’re unique. These are all things that can be done through a good story. In fact, some people are loyal to brands solely because of their story. You might love a local coffee shop that stands up against the big nation-wide chains, or a healthy organic restaurant with a mission to offer ethical and environmentally-friendly food. These brands are strong because of stories that emphasize the values they share with their customers. Stories work especially well in the digital age where people are flooded with advertising and marketing messages all day long. Your story helps your brand cut through the noise. What’s Your Story? Your brand story is the genesis story of your company. It tells why you founded it and how you grew it to its current state. It might include things like: How you grew from humble beginnings and overcame overwhelming odds How you stuck with your principles when selling out would’ve been easier How you solved a problem and then decided to offer this solution to the world at large How you want to change the world and why you’re trying to do it Like any good story, yours starts with a “why.” It has ups and downs, plot twists and drama, and a vision for the future, all centered around your company and its brand. How to Discover Your Story You’re not starting from scratch with your brand story. It’s already there, you just need to figure out how to tell it. Start by identifying your “why.” Why does your company exist? What is your mission? What motivates you to do what you do? How do you contribute? Brainstorm several story ideas. Write a few different versions of the basic story that emphasize different aspects of your business. If you’ve already clarified what your unique value is, write a story that explains this along the way. You may also write a few different versions to appeal to different segments of your market. Once you’ve chosen the right one, simplify it so it gets straight to the point. Give it the “so what?” test. When people are reading your story, they’re thinking, “so what?” In other words, “What’s in it for me?” It should be about your company, but it should also tell the reader what you do for them. A good brand story is straightforward and easy to understand. Once you have it finished, decide when and where you’ll use it, and create shorter and longer versions. Integrate it into your branding and it will drive home the unique value you offer. Do you want to learn more about branding your business the right way? Meet Trey Simon, Brand Performance Coach Hey, I’m Trey Simon. Within the past 15 years, I’ve helped hundreds of entrepreneurs turn vague ideas into clear-cut visions which generate leads & sales month after month. It’s finally time for you to get into the driver seat of your business, with our help of leveraging social media platforms, SEO tactics, email marketing automation strategies as well as untouchable creative design. To work with me, schedule a 1-on-1 demo to learn more about developing your brand identity and using the right online marketing tools: HERE About the Author Pat Simes is a Business Strategist, blogger and Founder of Innovative Business Solutions and Innovate Academy. She currently resides in the Midwest and is committed to inspiring and empowering entrepreneurs to transform their vision to reality.   Your brand is a major source of value for your company. With a strong brand identity, you can do more with fewer resources to reach your audience by creating an image in their minds of how you uniquely meet their needs. But branding is about much more than just logos. Here are the 5 key elements of a strong brand identity. A Purpose Your branding tells people your reason for doing what you do. It explains how you want to change the world for the better. At a glance, people can understand the values that are at the core of your philosophy and products. To start creating your brand identity, spend some time thinking about your “why.” Why does your business exist? What is it you hope to change in the world to make it a better place? What solution does your business bring? Market Position Your brand identity tells people what position you occupy in the market. It says not only what you do, but how you do it uniquely from anyone else: “We’re the ones who ____.” In a market full of other businesses show how you are different and how. Part of successful branding is to understand your industry and the unique place you fill in the market. It involves getting in touch with your natural strengths so you can play to them. Your Company’s Personality Your company should have a likeable and relatable personality that resonates with your audience. Your brand communicates this personality to your audience, speaking to them in their voice and tone. The personality also makes it memorable. What is your brand’s personality? You can figure this out through research and natural strengths, but also by asking your customers why they prefer buying from you and not someone else. Consistent Design Elements Although branding is more than just logos and colors, design elements are important. They work on a subtle level. Wherever your audience member encounters your brand, they see the same design features, which tells them it’s you and shows that you’re consistent. Design elements includes name, logo, colors, banners, fonts, and so on. Your Audience Your content is targeted to a specific audience, talking about their problems and addressing their needs. For a strong brand identity, you need to know your audience well and focus on them, not you or your products and services. Your branding discusses your offerings in terms of the unique benefits to users. How to Create a Strong Brand Identity Branding isn’t second nature to most companies. It requires some planning and strategic thinking to develop a strong brand identity. Creating a strong brand starts with clarifying your business goals and your strategy for achieving them. Your brand needs to be in line with your core values and unique value proposition. The next step is to research your audience and your industry, so you can understand what position you occupy in the market. A detailed customer profile helps you understand your target market so you can address their needs and speak their language. Once you’ve clarified the fundamentals of your business and gained a thorough understanding of the marketplace, you’re ready to create a branding message and unique value proposition. With this in hand, you’re ready to go about implementing your brand and monitoring your results. Do you want to learn more about creating a strong brand identity? Meet Trey Simon, Brand Performance Coach Hey, I’m Trey Simon. Within the past 15 years, I’ve helped hundreds of entrepreneurs turn vague ideas into clear-cut visions which generate leads & sales month after month. It’s finally time for you to get into the driver seat of your business, with our help of leveraging social media platforms, SEO tactics, email marketing automation strategies as well as untouchable creative design. To work with me, schedule a 1-on-1 demo to learn more about developing your brand identity and using the right online marketing tools: HERE About the Author Pat Simes is a Business Strategist, blogger and Founder of Innovative Business Solutions and Innovate Academy. She currently resides in the Midwest and is committed to inspiring and empowering entrepreneurs to transform their vision to reality.   Branding has an enormous impact on every aspect of your business. Whether you’re just getting started creating a brand identity or you’re in the process of rebranding because of changes in the market, you need to spend some time clarifying the messaging you want to create and deciding how to implement it. Here are the 6 steps for creating a strong brand. Create a Branding Strategy Your branding strategy clarifies which direction your branding should go. It means creating your messaging with an eye toward the future of your business. This step in the process starts with identifying your business goals and how your brand fits into them. How does it help you to achieve them? Research Your Market Before you start making any major decisions, you need to understand where your business fits into the market and the position it plays in the minds of your audience. Research needs to be conducted in a few key areas. Your Target Market. You need to create a detailed customer profile and identify the needs that your offerings fulfill for your audience. You also need to understand how your audience sees you, since “brand” is essentially an image that exists in their mind. Your Products and Services. Branding revolves around a promise you make to your audience. What is your promise? What need does your offering speak to and how does it uniquely solve the problems of your target market? Your Industry. Research the market and see what is happening in your industry in order to clarify your unique position in relation to others. People will love your brand because of its uniqueness. Create Your Messaging and Unique Value Proposition Now that you know the market and your position in it, create a message that explains to your audience how you uniquely fulfill their needs. This message in some form will be conveyed through everything you do and at every touchpoint with your audience. This message should focus on the customer and the benefits your offering provides them. How does using your products make the customer’s life better? It should emphasize what sets you apart from other, similar businesses. Create a Branding Plan Now, choose the personality, tone, and design elements that will help to convey this message to your audience. Your planning should include where you will communicate with your market and what content you will offer them. For branding to work, everything should be consistent and in harmony with the message you outlined in the previous step. Implement Your Brand Identity The process of branding is never truly finished. Once you implement it, you’ll need to monitor and keep gathering feedback from your market to make sure the message is hitting home. From time to time, you’ll also need to consider rebranding. Companies re-brand when there are significant changes in the market, changes in their company, or a new segment of the market they need to target. In order to keep up to date with these changes, they have to tweak or overhaul their branding so that it will achieve their new goals. Do you want to learn more about developing the right brand identity? Meet Trey Simon, Brand Performance Coach Hey, I’m Trey Simon. Within the past 15 years, I’ve helped hundreds of entrepreneurs turn vague ideas into clear-cut visions which generate leads & sales month after month. It’s finally time for you to get into the driver seat of your business, with our help of leveraging social media platforms, SEO tactics, email marketing automation strategies as well as untouchable creative design. To work with me, schedule a 1-on-1 demo to learn more about developing your brand identity and using the right online marketing tools: HERE  Are you in the market for digital marketing tools, a CRM, project management software, business automation tools or other digital tools for your online service-based business? If so, you may be confused about HOW MANY business tools you actually NEED. It's a good question, and we answer it and more in this video! Do you have a coaching business or need help finding the essential tools you need for your online service-based business? Confused about where to begin? Be sure to watch our playlists to learn more about how to choose, setup and maintain your digital tools! And check out this video to learn how many business tools you may actually need to run your business or ministry. Link to Watch Video: How Many Business Tools Do You Actually NEED About Guest Blogger: Lashondra Faines loves Jesus and she loves technology, digital tools that is! She has a passion for working with Kingdom-Focused Entrepreneurs helping them follow through on what God speaks by choosing, setting up, and maintaining digital tools properly to create excellent service delivery and streamlined operations, for steady growth in business. Residing in Illinois and serving through Agents of Grace Network, she is an advocate for implementation in the assignments we are given.  |
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