An Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) is a strategic tool that commercial directors, CMOs and marketing managers in business-to-business (B2B) use to identify the most ideal type of customer for a company. The ICP helps organizations focus their marketing, sales and service efforts on customers who best fit their offering. This can ultimately lead to (greatly) improved customer satisfaction and business growth.
Joseph Jaffe – well-known since his book Flip the Funnel came out – was one of the keynote speakers at this year’s edition of B2B Marketing Forum. Of course he shared his insights on the ‘flipped funnel’, but also on real customer centricity, customers that show their brand love via tattoos, Jaffe’s personal definition of a successful book and lots more.
In yesterday’s Financieel Dagblad-column Annet Aris – Fontainebleau professor of digital strategy – describes the imminent digital disruption’s impact on business-to-business. Sofar says Aris, digital impact in B2B has been much more limited than in B2C.
B2B companies in her opinion are slower to change their behavior than individuals. And due to patents and intimate buyer relationships, B2B products allegedly are better protected against newcomers.
Homo economicus does not exist. The human species – in B2B marketing too – is being driven by emotions. Neuroscientists and behavorial economists agree that man makes up to 99% of his (or her) emotions subconsciously, from the instinct. ‘The human brain hasn’t had a major software upgrade for the last 50,000 years’, said Peter Diamandis a few weeks ago at the Singularity summit in Amsterdam.
From the outside various players in the same B2B industry look very similar. The logistic products and services from the likes of TNT, UPS and PostNL for instance. DHL decided it was time for a different approach.