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Market & Audience

Planning your Ideal Customer Profile

By September 3, 2025September 4th, 2025No Comments3 min read

Use these three tactics to identify your ICP

RUNWAY FIVE is the growth partner that sits at the leadership table, aligning teams and agencies to deliver measurable results.

If you are serious about scaling your B2B business, you cannot afford to chase the wrong customers. An Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) gives you the clarity to focus on the accounts that will generate the highest revenue, stay loyal, and grow with you. Here is how to plan yours properly.

1. Define the fundamentals

Start by looking at the hard data behind your best customers. Which industries do they sit in, what is their average revenue, how many employees do they have, and where are they based? These firmographics are the baseline for who qualifies as your ICP.

Your action

  1. Analyse your current customer base and group them by revenue, headcount, and sector
  2. Identify the patterns in the accounts that are most profitable and least resource-heavy
  3. Write this up as your non-negotiable ICP filters

When you do this, you will stop chasing businesses that look interesting but will never convert.

2. Add buying signals

The right company is not enough. Timing matters. Look for signals that show an account is ready to act. Some signals might include new funding, rapid hiring, product launches, or the tools they already use.

Your action

  1. Use Apollo.io or LinkedIn Sales Navigator to spot accounts with the right triggers
  2. Track hiring or funding announcements to see which companies are gearing up to spend
  3. Note the technologies they rely on and where your solution creates the most impact

With these signals layered in, you will know not just who to target but when to target them.

3. Map the people

An ICP is not only about the company profile. You need to understand the buying committee. Deals stall when you fail to engage the right roles or ignore their pain points.

Your action

  1. List the roles that typically influence or sign off on your deals
  2. Document the specific pain points of each role and how your solution answers them
  3. Refine your messaging so it lands differently with a CFO, a CMO, or a Head of Operations

This ensures you are speaking to the right people inside your ICP accounts with the right message.

Conclusion

When you plan your ICP properly, you stop spreading effort thin and start building predictable growth. Define the fundamentals, add the buying signals, and map the people who matter. That is how you align your teams around accounts that will generate real impact for your business.

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