Define your ICP and build a relevant audience

1. Start with your strongest customer relationships

Your ICP, or ideal customer profile, describes companies for which your offer creates clear value. Begin with real situations: satisfied customers, successful projects and promising conversations. Identify shared characteristics such as industry, size, organization, geography and buying context. Add a sentence describing the desired outcome, for example faster preparation of agency reviews. The funnel visual represents this progression: a market, a relevant company group, specific people and conversations. This path helps you explain why each filter improves audience relevance and messaging. Keep customer evidence alongside the criteria so the profile remains connected to situations your team understands.

1. Choose examples of successful relationships.
2. Identify shared characteristics.
3. Describe the outcome those companies seek.

2. Separate company fit from contact relevance

A company can fit your ICP while containing several relevant contacts. Describe each role: project sponsor, user, decision-maker or coordinator. Titles vary with company size and industry, so collect alternatives that represent a similar responsibility. Add a verified context that makes your offer timely, such as a new service line or a growing team. The audience then centers on a professional objective and a person able to discuss it. This precision directly informs your opening sentence and value proposition. Keep company fit and contact relevance visible as separate decisions, giving the team a repeatable way to qualify future segments.

1. Define the role to contact.
2. List equivalent titles.
3. Add a verifiable professional context.

3. Translate the profile into a search

In Beeving, use advanced filters or describe your audience to Fold in natural language. An example brief could be French communications agencies with 10 to 50 employees, focusing on a founder or operations leader. This illustrates the method; adapt it to the available fields and your market. Review initial profiles to check that results match the intended criteria. Refine one dimension at a time, such as company size or responsibility. Name the segment after its audience and objective so teammates can understand its purpose. Keep the search description with your campaign planning to support future iterations.

1. Write the targeting brief.
2. Review a sample of profiles.
3. Refine and name the segment.

4. Evolve the ICP through conversations

Targeting grows more precise as conversations provide context. In CRM, record the roles involved, expressed priorities and next steps. Compare segments through their ability to create relevant discussions and opportunities. A highly focused audience may merit deeper individual research, while a consistent group may share a common proposition. Document what each campaign teaches: who understands the value, which event makes the topic timely and what evidence supports the conversation. The ICP becomes a living decision tool for marketing and sales. Revisit it alongside actual customer outcomes so audience choices continue to reflect the relationships your business wants to build.

1. Keep learning in the records.
2. Compare conversations across segments.
3. Update criteria using deal context.

A little more context.