🧭 How to Define Your Target Audience & Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) 🚀

🎉 Why Defining Your Target Audience Matters

Success in outreach isn’t just about sending more emails—it’s about sending the right emails to the right people.

Defining your target audience and Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) ensures you’re reaching companies that are actively looking for new solutions and services. Since every company in Revli's database has recently raised funding, they’re primed to make big decisions, like investing in tools, services, and software.

With Revli, you have access to powerful filters that help you pinpoint your target audience with laser precision. By zeroing in on the companies most likely to buy, you’ll increase your response rates, book more meetings, and ultimately close more deals.

🔍 What is an Ideal Customer Profile (ICP)?

Your ICP is a fictional "perfect customer" that’s most likely to see value in your service. It’s a mix of characteristics shared by your best customers. By creating an ICP, you can prioritize leads that match this profile, saving you time and increasing your win rate.

Key traits of an ICP might include:

Industry (e.g., SaaS, Healthtech, or Proptech)
Company Size (e.g., Startups with 11-50 employees)
Location (e.g., USA, Canada, or specific regions like Silicon Valley)
Funding Amount (e.g., Series A companies that raised $2M+)
Hiring Signals (e.g., Companies hiring for roles in marketing, sales, or operations)

Your ICP helps you focus on companies that have the highest likelihood of engaging with you and ultimately purchasing your product or service.

🛠️ Step 1: Identify the Core Characteristics of Your ICP

Here’s a simple way to define your ICP: Look at your past successful customers. Ask yourself:

What industries are they in?
What company size do they represent? (Employee count, revenue, etc.)
What roles/decision-makers typically drive the purchase? (e.g., CTO, CMO, COO, Founder)
What buying triggers did they have? (e.g., Just raised funding, actively hiring for key roles, etc.)

If you’re just starting out and don’t have a list of past customers, think about your “dream customer.” If you could fill your client list with 100 customers, what would they have in common?

Pro Tip: If you’re a marketing agency, your ICP might be startups with fewer than 20 employees (because smaller companies need outsourced support).

If you’re in HR staffing, you may target companies that are hiring for HR or recruiting roles. Your ICP should be specific to your unique business model.

🔍 Step 2: Use Revli’s Filters to Find Your ICP

Revli makes it easy to filter for companies that match your ICP. Here’s how to do it.

1️⃣ Filter by Industry Focus on companies in industries that align with your service offering. Revli gives you access to 500+ niche industry filters.

Example: If you’re an HR staffing firm, you may want to focus on companies in SaaS, HealthTech, or PropTech since these industries often need to scale teams after raising funds.
How to do it: Click the “Industry” filter and select multiple industries that align with your ICP.

2️⃣ Filter by Location Where are the companies you want to target? Revli allows you to filter by country, state, or even city.

Example: If you offer web development services, you may want to target high-tech areas like Silicon Valley, Austin, and Toronto.
How to do it: Use the "Location" filter to drill down on specific cities or regions.

3️⃣ Filter by Funding Amount If your service works best with early-stage or growth-stage startups, filter by the amount they raised.

Example: If you offer services like legal or accounting, you may want to focus on Seed and Series A companies that raised between $1M and $10M, as they often need to formalize their back office.
How to do it: Use the "Funding Amount" slider to filter companies that fit your preferred range.

4️⃣ Filter by Hiring Signals Companies that are hiring are often in a state of growth and open to new solutions. But keep in mind that all companies on Revli just raised funding, meaning they’re already primed to make buying decisions—even if they aren’t currently hiring.

Example: If you offer recruitment or staffing services, focus on companies hiring for roles like HR, Talent Acquisition, or Recruiting.
How to do it: Click on the “Currently Hiring” filter to see a list of companies hiring and the roles they’re hiring for.

5️⃣ Filter by Employee Size If your service is priced for startups with smaller budgets, you might want to target smaller companies.

Example: If you offer early-stage marketing services, you may want to target startups with 1-20 employees, as they likely don’t have an internal marketing team.
How to do it: Use the “Employee Size” filter to focus on smaller teams or larger enterprises.

📚 Real-Life Example: Building Your ICP

Let’s say you’re running a recruitment agency specializing in technical roles like software engineers. Here’s how you might define your ICP:

Industry: SaaS, AI, Software Development
Location: United States, Canada
Funding Amount: Seed and Series A ($500K to $10M)
Hiring Roles: Engineering, Software Development, Product Management
Company Size: 11-50 employees

With Revli’s filters, you can create this ICP in minutes and instantly get a list of recently funded startups that match. No guesswork required.

✍️ Step 3: Save Your Filters for Future Use

Don’t waste time setting filters every week. Once you’ve created your ICP filters, save them in Revli so you can quickly access them for new outreach campaigns. This means you’ll always have a fresh list of leads that match your ICP criteria.

🚀 Advanced Tips to Improve Targeting

Be specific with your ICP: Instead of “Tech Companies,” try “Seed-stage SaaS companies in the US hiring for HR roles.”
Update your ICP every quarter: Your best customers today might not be the same in six months. Revisit your ICP regularly.
Segment your outreach: Don’t send one generic message to 1,000 companies. Instead, create smaller, segmented lists with specific messaging.

💡 Key Takeaways

Defining your ICP makes your outreach more targeted, efficient, and effective.
Use Revli's filters to build lead lists that match your ICP's industry, funding, hiring, and company size criteria.
Save your filters to automate the process and always have a fresh list of hot leads.

🎉 Ready to Define Your ICP?

Now that you know how to define your target audience, it’s time to put it into practice. Use Revli’s advanced filtering tools to build your first lead list based on your ICP.

👉 Next Step: Why You Should Use Multiple Domains & Inboxes (And How to Set It Up) Want to protect your main domain’s reputation and maximize deliverability? Learn how to use tools like Zapmail.ai to send emails safely from secondary domains.

Got questions? We’re here to help. Reach out anytime! 🚀