ICP (Ideal Customer Profile)
A specific definition of the customer you're built to serve.
An ICP is a precise, written-down description of the type of customer your product is designed for — role, company size, industry, problem context, budget, sophistication. Different from a "persona" in that ICP is the buying-fit definition, persona is the buyer's personality.
Strong ICPs are exclusionary. "Marketing teams" is not an ICP. "VPs of marketing at 50-200 person B2B SaaS who own demand gen and have a tools budget of $50K+/year" is. The exclusion is the value — it tells everyone which conversations to skip.
ICP definitions improve over time as you close real deals. Track which prospects convert vs. churn vs. ignore, then refine the ICP toward the close-and-stay profile.
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