ICP Research
Build comprehensive ideal customer profiles for targeted marketing, including community discovery and voice-of-customer language extraction.
Install
git clone https://github.com/thatrebeccarae/claude-marketing.git && cp -r claude-marketing/skills/icp-research ~/.claude/skills/
Workflow
1. Gather Product Context
- What do you sell?
- Key features and differentiators
- Pricing model and range
- Current customers (who buys today?)
2. Define Market
- Industry / vertical
- Company size (employees, revenue)
- Geography
- B2B vs. B2C vs. B2B2C
3. Build Persona
Demographics:
- Job title and seniority level
- Department and reporting structure
- Company size and revenue range
- Industry and sub-vertical
- Geography and timezone
Psychographics:
- Daily responsibilities (what fills their calendar)
- Goals they are measured on (KPIs, OKRs)
- Frustrations and daily friction
- Career aspirations
- How they stay informed (publications, podcasts, communities)
Buying Behavior:
- Who influences the decision?
- Who approves the budget?
- What is the buying process? (self-serve, demo, RFP, committee)
- Evaluation criteria (price, features, support, integration)
- Typical buying timeline
4. Map Pain Points
| Category | Questions to Answer |
|---|---|
| Time | What takes too long? What manual work do they hate? |
| Money | Where are they wasting budget? What costs too much? |
| Risk | What keeps them up at night? What could go wrong? |
| Quality | Where is output inconsistent or error-prone? |
| Growth | What blocks them from scaling? |
Score each pain point: Frequency (1-10) x Intensity (1-10) = Priority Score
5. Identify Objections
| Objection Type | Response Strategy |
|---|---|
| Price | ROI calculation, cost of inaction, payment flexibility |
| Time | Quick setup, done-for-you options, time-to-value metrics |
| Trust | Social proof, case studies, free trial/pilot, guarantees |
| Need | Cost of status quo, competitor pressure, market trends |
| Authority | Executive summary, ROI one-pager, pilot proposal |
6. Map Buying Triggers
External triggers:
- New funding round or budget cycle
- Leadership change (new CMO, VP)
- Competitor pressure (lost deal, feature gap)
- Regulatory change (compliance deadline)
- Failed vendor or tool (contract end, outage)
Internal triggers:
- Missed targets (revenue, growth, efficiency)
- Team complaints (process pain, tool frustration)
- Process breaking at scale
- New initiative requiring new capabilities
- Budget cuts forcing consolidation
7. Community Research
Discover where your ICP gathers online and extract their exact language.
Platforms to search:
- Reddit (subreddits by industry/role)
- Facebook Groups
- Discord and Slack communities
- LinkedIn Groups
- Quora and Stack Exchange
- Industry forums
- YouTube comments
- App review sites (G2, Capterra, Trustpilot)
Search templates:
"[industry/role] frustrating OR annoying"
"why is [process] so hard"
"alternatives to [competitor]"
"[tool] vs [tool]"
"best [tool type] for [use case]"
"I switched from [tool] because"
What to extract:
- Exact phrases and vocabulary they use (voice-of-customer)
- Pain points with emotional language
- Evaluation criteria they mention
- Competitors they compare
- Objections they raise
Classify community members:
- Actively seeking: ready to buy, asking for recommendations
- Aware but stuck: know the problem, not acting on it
- Venting only: complaining but unlikely to change
8. Craft Messaging Angles
For each pain point, create:
- Headline: attention-grabbing statement
- Supporting proof: data point, case study, or testimonial
- CTA: specific next step
Output Format
See REFERENCE.md for the complete ICP profile template.
Key Principles
- Real language over marketing language. Use the exact words your ICP uses, not polished marketing copy.
- Pain over features. Lead with what hurts, not what you built.
- Specificity wins. "VP of Marketing at a 50-person SaaS company" > "Marketing leaders."
- Validate with data. Community research > assumptions.
- One ICP per profile. If you serve different personas, create separate profiles.
For templates and frameworks, see REFERENCE.md.