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Hey Marketing Bestie,

1 disadvantage of being taller than average is you hit your head on things at least 2x a week.

Today, I hit my head on a branch walking and I swear I might have a concussion.

How tall are you BTW?

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SPARKNOTES FROM THE POD

5 WAYS TO BUILD AN IDEAL CUSTOMER PROFILE (ICP) THAT ACTUALLY DRIVES REVENUE

Hailey McDonald wanted to be a journalist in college. Worked for the student newspaper. Picked up graphic design on the side. But graduated with an economics degree.

Then realized: "Where do they want the economists?" That wasn't the path.

So she used the skills she actually had. Storytelling and design. And landed in marketing through an agency instead.

She's the accidental marketer. The one who didn't plan the path but built one anyway.

Now she's VP of Revenue Marketing at Sprout Social. Month 1.

And the first thing she's doing is asking a question that exposes every broken thing in your go-to-market strategy.

"Ask your marketing team, sales team, product team, and RevOps what your ICP is. I almost guarantee different answers."

That's it. One question. One conversation. Suddenly you see why campaigns aren't converting. Why sales hates the leads you're sending. Why you hit pipeline targets but miss revenue targets.

Hailey spent the last year obsessed with ICP. Not demographics. Not company size. Not arbitrary segments.

Real ICP. Based on use cases. Based on customers who actually stay, spend the most, and show value.

The ones you want MORE of.

Listen to the full episode here where Hailey breaks down the ICP audit that takes 5 minutes, why "account-based marketing" is really just lead gen with extra steps, and why brand and demand gen can't exist in separate silos.

1️⃣. Your ICP Is Broken If Every Department Defines It Differently.

Hailey's Take: "Go have all of the different functions across revenue and ask them what the definition of their ideal customer profile is. And I almost guarantee you that you're not going to get the same answer. It's either going to be way too broad or it's going to be completely different from each group."

Pull marketing, sales, product, and RevOps into a room. Ask each 1: "What's our ICP?"

If they all say the same thing, you're aligned. You're winning.

If they give 3 different answers, you found your revenue leak.

Marketing targets "companies with $10M ARR in tech." Sales hunts "anyone with a budget." Product says "enterprises with 500+ employees." RevOps says "whoever closes deals."

Now you have a problem.

Your campaigns target 1 ICP. Sales hunts a different 1. The landing page speaks to another. The deal that closes is with someone nobody was actually targeting.

That person turns out to be a bad fit. Churns in 6 months. Cost you acquisition money for zero lifetime value.

This is expensive. And preventable.

Takeaway: Schedule a 30-minute meeting with marketing, sales, product, and RevOps. 

Ask each department: "Define our ideal customer in 3 sentences." 

Have them write it down separately before the meeting.

Then compare. If they don't match, you found your number one growth leak. Write down the gaps. That gap is costing you revenue right now. Use those gaps as your ICP alignment roadmap.

2️⃣. ICP Isn't Demographics. It's The Use Case They're Buying You For.

Hailey's Take: "Your ideal customer is going to be the customer that is most satisfied, that stays with you the longest and that generally spends the most with you. The nut of what I really just said was that the ideal customer profiles are getting value from what your solution delivers. And so really it's like the use case that they're using you for."

"Companies with 50 to 200 employees" is not an ICP. That's a demographic.

An ICP is: "Marketing ops managers in mid-market SaaS who are trying to consolidate their martech stack to reduce vendor costs and improve attribution."

See the difference?

The first 1 tells you nothing about what these companies want from you or why they'd stay.

The second 1 tells you exactly what value they're getting and who your real competition is.

Hailey's approach: Start with your happiest, longest-staying, highest-spending customers. 

Reverse-engineer what they're actually USING you for.

Not what you think they're using you for. What they actually are.

Look at their workflows. How are they implementing you? Which features do they use most? What problem are they solving?

That's your ICP.

Then find more companies solving the exact same problem the exact same way.

Takeaway: Pull your top 5 customers by Lifetime Value (LTV). 

For each 1, ask: "What's the number one problem they're solving with your product?" 

Look for patterns. If 3 of them say "reducing vendor bloat," that's your ICP use case.

Now target companies with that specific problem, not just the demographic. 

Write your messaging around solving THAT problem, not generic benefits.

3️⃣. "Account-Based Marketing" Is Just Lead Gen With A Target List If You Don't Have Aligned Messaging.

Hailey's Take: "When you have your campaigns and are kind of deploying those in marketing, those definitions might end up being targeting a totally different group than who sales is actually going into. And so that level of alignment, if that's not there, I can immediately tell like there's either a lot of inefficiency going on or something is completely broken."

You have a target account list. You're running ads to them. You think you're doing ABM.

You're not. You're doing lead gen with a whitelist.

Real ABM: Sales and marketing hunt the SAME accounts with aligned messaging and sequencing.

Fake ABM: Marketing targets account A with message X. Sales hunts account B with message Y. The leads that come through don't match what sales is actually hunting.

Sales ignores them. Marks them as "not qualified." Blames marketing.

Meanwhile, marketing blames sales for not closing the leads.

Everyone's frustrated. Budget gets cut.

The real problem? No alignment on WHO you're going after and WHAT message they're hearing.

Takeaway: Pull your target account list. 

For each account, write: "The buying committee is [title], [title], [title]. They care about [problem]. Our unique angle is [differentiation]." 

Share that with sales. Ask: "Is this who you're actually talking to and saying this?" If sales says no, your Target Account List is the problem. Sync monthly. 

Every time you add an account to the TAL, create aligned messaging between marketing and sales FIRST. Then deploy.

4️⃣. Pipeline Targets Hit But Revenue Targets Miss? Your ICP Drifted.

Hailey's Take: "If you're hitting pipeline targets and you're not hitting revenue targets, it could be a few things, but I've noticed a pretty distinguished pattern that if you peel back the layers you're gonna find that there is that drift happening with your defined ICP and how you're targeting against them."

You crush your pipeline number. Marketing high-fives the sales team.

Then revenue misses. Finance has questions.

"We brought in $30M in pipeline. Why only $8M in closed revenue?"

The knee-jerk reaction: "Sales can't close deals."

The actual problem: You've been bringing in deals nobody should be closing.

Over 6 months, your definition of "good lead" drifted. You started targeting companies slightly outside your ICP. Just slightly. But it added up.

Those deals close slower. Discount rate is higher. Churn is faster.

Your pipeline looks good. Your revenue doesn't.

The fix: Compare pipeline growth vs revenue growth. If pipeline is growing 50% but revenue is growing 10%, something's wrong. Dig into deal velocity. Win rate. Discount rate. Churn.

Then trace it back to the accounts you've been targeting.

Odds are: You drifted into adjacent ICPs that look good on paper but convert poorly.

Takeaway: Pull last 12 months of data: Pipeline generated, deals closed, revenue closed, churn. Calculate: Win rate, deal velocity, discount rate, 1-year retention.

Identify your top quartile deals. 

Look at the ICP characteristics: Company size, industry, use case, buying stage. 

That's your REAL ICP. 

Now compare it to who you've been targeting recently. If there's drift, realign your targeting to match your best-closing cohort.

5️⃣. You Can't Have Demand Without Brand. Demand Gen Is Just Demand Capture.

Hailey's Take: "You can't have demand without brands. I come from a very heavy revenue marketing background and everyone wants new opportunities. Everyone wants more pipeline. And our brand and product marketing folks often don't get resourced enough. But you're not going to open the deals you want and you're not going to close the deals you want if you don't have good brand."

Demand gen teams are built to capture existing demand.

Someone's already got a problem. Someone's already searching. Someone's already aware of the category.

So you target them. You capture the deal.

The problem: The pool of people already aware and actively searching is finite.

Year 1, you crush it. You capture all the low-hanging fruit.

Year 2, the market looks the same size. But you've already grabbed the easy ones. Competition is fiercer. Costs go up. Win rates go down.

Year 3, you're screwed.

Why? Because nobody invested in building AWARENESS of your brand. Building perception of your solution. Building understanding that YOUR product solves problems people didn't even know they had.

That's what brand does. It creates demand that didn't exist.

Demand gen captures the demand that brand creates.

Without brand, demand gen is just playing poker with a shrinking deck.

Takeaway: Audit your marketing spend.

What percentage goes to brand? What percentage goes to demand capture? 

Track for the next 90 days: Organic search traffic, branded search volume, impression share in your category. If organic search is flat but paid demand capture is growing, you're not building awareness. You're just capturing what already exists.

Small shift: Move 5-10% of budget from demand capture to brand testing. Track the same metrics. 

If organic search and branded volume go up, keep shifting. If they stay flat, brand work needs better creative. The goal isn't a specific split. 

The goal is: Your organic and brand metrics should grow as fast as your paid metrics. If they don't, you're living off borrowed time.

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IN A MEME

Yes. I do have a bump on my head in case you are wondering.

Your friend,

Daniel