Ideal customer profile for social media: define yours

Key takeaways

An ideal customer profile for social media is a one-page description of the buyer you most want more of, built from real customers. It records who they are, what triggers the purchase, what they ask first and what they have in common. Every post is then written for that person.

• 10 best customers are enough to build a profile you can use.
• Record the trigger for buying, not only age and job title.
• 1 page is the limit. Longer profiles are never read again.
• Write a second, shorter profile of the customer you do not want.

What is an ideal customer profile?

An ideal customer profile (ICP) is a short description of the type of customer who gets the most value from what you sell and is most profitable for you to serve. On social media it works as a filter: before publishing, you ask whether this person would stop, read and recognise their own situation.

• How to create social media content that attracts the right customers

How do you build a profile from real customers?

Start with invoices, not assumptions. Pick the ten customers you would most like to repeat, judged on profit, ease of working and likelihood of referring you. For each, write down what they bought, why then, how they found you and what they asked first. The patterns across the ten are your profile.

• List ten customers you would gladly clone.
• Note what each bought and what it was worth.
• Note the event that made them act when they did.
• Note their first three questions.
• Circle whatever at least six of the ten share.

• Run social media audience research without a research budget

What belongs on a one-page profile?

A useful profile has six lines: who they are, where they are, the trigger that starts them looking, the problem in their own words, what they need to see before trusting a supplier, and the typical size of the work. Demographics alone are not enough, because two people of the same age and postcode can want opposite things.

• Who: role or household type, in one phrase.
• Where: the area or market you can serve well.
• Trigger: the event that starts the search.
• Problem: how they describe it, word for word.
• Proof needed: what convinces them.
• Scale: typical job size or order value.

• Use your customers' own words in social media content

Should you also define who you do not want?

Yes. A short profile of the wrong customer is what makes the right one sharper. List the enquiries that waste time: below your minimum, outside your area, or wanting something you no longer do. You will not attack these people in your content. You will simply stop writing posts that invite them.

• Content that politely repels the wrong customers

How many profiles does a small business need?

Most small businesses need one profile, and two at the most. Each profile needs its own content, so every extra one divides your effort. If you serve two clearly different buyers, such as landlords and homeowners, give each a profile and decide the share of posts each receives before you start.

• Selling to both businesses and consumers on social media

What mistakes make a profile useless?

Three mistakes make a profile useless. It is invented in a meeting instead of drawn from customers. It describes everyone, so it filters nothing. Or it is written once and filed. A profile earns its place only if someone checks posts against it before they go out.

• Invented names and hobbies with no evidence behind them.
• Ranges so wide they include most of the population.
• No mention of budget or job size.
• Never reviewed after the first draft.

How do you use the profile each week?

Use the profile as the first check on every post: is it clear this is for that person? It is the Person part of the GBL Right-Customer Content Scorecard, and it is the part that decides whether the other four can work. Review the profile every six months against your newest customers.

• The right-customer content scorecard for social media
• A social media content brief that keeps posts on target

What does this look like in practice?

A pattern we see with UK professional services firms: the profile on file says 'SMEs in the South East', which describes several hundred thousand businesses. Rewriting it from the ten best clients usually produces something far narrower, such as owner-managed firms with 10 to 40 staff that have just lost a finance manager. Content written for that reader is immediately more specific.

• See client work
• Social Media Marketing for UK businesses

Ideal customer profile checklist

Tick these before you call the profile finished.

• Built from at least ten real customers.
• States the trigger that starts the purchase.
• Includes the problem in the customer's words.
• Includes typical job size or budget.
• Fits on one page.
• Has a matching note on who you do not want.

Next step

Pull your ten best customers from the last two years and fill in the six lines for each. The profile will be obvious by the time you reach the tenth.