Icp Research

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

Score each pain point: Frequency (1-10) x Intensity (1-10) = Priority Score

5. Identify Objections

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

1. Real language over marketing language. Use the exact words your ICP uses, not polished marketing copy. 2. Pain over features. Lead with what hurts, not what you built. 3. Specificity wins. "VP of Marketing at a 50-person SaaS company" > "Marketing leaders." 4. Validate with data. Community research > assumptions. 5. One ICP per profile. If you serve different personas, create separate profiles.

For templates and frameworks, see REFERENCE.md.

ICP Research — Examples

Example 1: B2B SaaS ICP

Prompt:

Build an ICP for our marketing analytics platform. We sell to mid-market DTC e-commerce brands ($5M-$50M revenue). Our main competitors are Triple Whale, Northbeam, and Rockerbox.

Expected output: Complete ICP profile including:

• Persona: "Sarah, VP of Marketing at a 40-person DTC brand doing $15M/year"
• Day in life: Starts with checking ROAS in 3 different dashboards, reviews creative performance, meets with the agency, presents to the CEO on channel efficiency
• Top pain points: (1) Attribution is unreliable post-iOS (Score: 90), (2) Too many dashboards, no single source of truth (Score: 72), (3) Cannot justify ad spend increases to CFO (Score: 68)
• Objections: "We already have Triple Whale" → response with differentiation; "Our agency handles this" → response about agency independence
• Buying triggers: New fiscal year budget, disappointing Q4 results, agency change
• Community intel: Found in r/DTC, r/ecommerce, DTC Twitter, Operators podcast community
• Voice quotes: "I just want one dashboard that tells me the truth" (Reddit), "Triple Whale says one thing, GA4 says another, my agency says a third" (Facebook Group)
• 3 messaging angles with headlines and proof points

---

Example 2: DTC E-commerce Persona

Prompt:

Create a buyer persona for our premium skincare brand. Our customer is a woman, 28-42, who spends $100+/month on skincare and shops primarily online.

Expected output: Consumer ICP profile:

• Persona: "Michelle, 34, Senior Product Manager, Brooklyn"
• Day in life: Morning skincare routine is a ritual, reads beauty blogs during lunch, follows skincare influencers on Instagram and TikTok, shops on brand websites (not Amazon for premium skincare)
• Pain points: (1) Ingredient confusion — too many options, contradictory advice (Score: 85), (2) Sensitivity — has wasted money on products that caused breakouts (Score: 78), (3) Trust — skeptical of influencer recommendations (Score: 65)
• Community: r/SkincareAddiction, r/30PlusSkinCare, Sephora community, TikTok #skintok
• Voice quotes: "I wish someone would just tell me exactly what to use for my skin type" (Reddit)
• Buying triggers: Seasonal change, running out of current product, friend recommendation, dermatologist visit
• Messaging angles focused on trust, transparency, and simplicity

---

Example 3: Agency Services ICP

Prompt:

Build an ICP for our performance marketing agency. We specialize in Google Ads and Meta for DTC brands doing $1M-$10M in revenue. They typically have 1-2 marketing people and no in-house paid media expertise.

Expected output: ICP profile:

• Persona: "Jake, Founder/CEO of a DTC brand doing $3M/year with 8 employees"
• Top pain points: (1) Tried running ads himself, wasted $15K (Score: 95), (2) Hired a freelancer who disappeared (Score: 82), (3) Does not know what good ROAS looks like for his category (Score: 70)
• Objections: "Agencies are too expensive" → cost of inaction calc showing $5K/month waste; "I want to keep it in-house eventually" → position as training wheels
• Community: DTC Twitter, Indie Hackers, Shopify community forums, Facebook groups for DTC founders
• Buying triggers: Black Friday/holiday prep (Aug-Sep), post-holiday slump (Jan-Feb), Series A funding
• Messaging angles: "Stop guessing with your ad spend," "We manage your ads so you can manage your business," "The agency that teaches you to fire them"

ICP Research — Reference

ICP Profile Template

# ICP Profile: [Persona Name]
**Created:** YYYY-MM-DD
**Confidence Level:** High / Medium / Low
**Based on:** [Data sources: interviews, community research, customer data, etc.]

## Demographics
- **Title:** [Job title]
- **Seniority:** [C-level / VP / Director / Manager / IC]
- **Department:** [Marketing / Sales / Ops / Engineering / etc.]
- **Reports to:** [Title]
- **Company size:** [Employees] / [Revenue range]
- **Industry:** [Primary] / [Sub-vertical]
- **Geography:** [Region/Country]

## Day in the Life
[2-3 paragraph narrative of what this person's typical day looks like.
What meetings do they attend? What tools do they use? What frustrates them?
What does success look like at the end of the day?]

## Goals & KPIs
1. [Primary goal they are measured on]
2. [Secondary goal]
3. [Tertiary goal]

## Pain Points (Ranked by Priority Score)

| # | Pain Point | Frequency (1-10) | Intensity (1-10) | Score | Category |
|---|-----------|-------------------|-------------------|-------|----------|
| 1 | [Pain]    | [X]               | [X]               | [XX]  | [Time/Money/Risk/Quality/Growth] |
| 2 | [Pain]    | [X]               | [X]               | [XX]  | [Category] |
| 3 | [Pain]    | [X]               | [X]               | [XX]  | [Category] |

## Objections & Responses

### "[Objection 1]"
- **Type:** Price / Time / Trust / Need / Authority
- **Response:** [2-3 sentences]
- **Proof point:** [Case study, stat, or testimonial]

### "[Objection 2]"
...

## Buying Triggers
**Most likely triggers (in order):**
1. [Trigger] — [Why this triggers action]
2. [Trigger] — [Why this triggers action]
3. [Trigger] — [Why this triggers action]

## Buying Process
- **Timeline:** [Typical length from awareness to purchase]
- **Decision makers:** [Who is involved]
- **Evaluation criteria:** [What they compare on]
- **Preferred buying model:** [Self-serve / Demo / Trial / RFP]

## Community Intelligence
**Where they gather:**
| Platform | Specific Location | Activity Level |
|----------|-------------------|---------------|
| Reddit   | r/[subreddit]     | [High/Med/Low] |
| [Platform] | [Group/Channel] | [Activity] |

**Voice-of-customer quotes:**
> "[Exact quote from community]" — [Source]
> "[Exact quote from community]" — [Source]

**Language patterns:**
- They say "[phrase]" not "[our marketing term]"
- Common vocabulary: [list of terms they use]

## Messaging Angles

### Angle 1: [Name]
- **Pain point addressed:** [Which one]
- **Headline:** [Attention-grabbing statement]
- **Supporting proof:** [Data point or case study]
- **Best channel:** [Where to use this message]

### Angle 2: [Name]
...

Pain Point Scoring Matrix

Priority Score = Frequency x Intensity

Score 80-100: Critical — lead with this in all messaging
Score 50-79:  Important — strong supporting message
Score 30-49:  Moderate — mention but don't lead with
Score 1-29:   Minor — omit from primary messaging

Frequency (1-10):
1-3:  Rare (monthly or less)
4-6:  Regular (weekly)
7-9:  Frequent (daily)
10:   Constant (multiple times per day)

Intensity (1-10):
1-3:  Mild annoyance
4-6:  Significant frustration
7-9:  Major pain, actively seeking solution
10:   Hair-on-fire, will pay anything to fix

Objection Handling Frameworks

LAER Framework

Listen:    Acknowledge the objection without defensiveness
Acknowledge: "That's a fair concern. [Paraphrase their worry]."
Explore:   "Can you tell me more about what's driving that?"
Respond:   [Address with proof point, case study, or reframe]

Cost of Inaction Calculator

Annual cost of the problem:
  [Hours wasted per week] x [Hourly cost] x 52 = $[Annual waste]
  OR
  [Revenue lost per month] x 12 = $[Annual loss]
  OR
  [Tool cost] + [Opportunity cost] = $[Annual total]

Your solution cost: $[Price]
Net benefit: $[Savings - Price] per year
Payback period: [Months]

Community Research Search Templates

Reddit

site:reddit.com "[industry]" "[pain point]"
site:reddit.com "switched from [competitor]" "[industry]"
site:reddit.com "best [tool type] for" "[use case]"
site:reddit.com "frustrating" "[process or tool]"

G2 / Capterra Reviews

site:g2.com "[competitor]" reviews "switched to"
site:capterra.com "[competitor]" "pros and cons"

LinkedIn

site:linkedin.com "[job title]" "[pain point or challenge]"
site:linkedin.com "[industry]" "biggest challenge"

General Community Discovery

"[industry] community" OR "slack" OR "discord" OR "forum"
"[job title] group" site:facebook.com
"[industry] subreddit" OR "r/[industry]"

Messaging Angle Formulas

Problem-Agitate-Solution (PAS)

Problem:  [State the pain in their language]
Agitate:  [Make it worse — show consequences of not acting]
Solution: [Your product as the resolution]

Before-After-Bridge (BAB)

Before:  [Life with the problem]
After:   [Life after solving it]
Bridge:  [How your product gets them there]

Feature-Advantage-Benefit (FAB)

Feature:   [What it does]
Advantage: [Why that matters vs. alternatives]
Benefit:   [How it improves their life/work]