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Ideal Customer Profiles

ICP Definition

Gradient serves three distinct types of clients that fall into larger “buckets”:

  1. Blue chip and legacy brands
  2. Creative and brand agencies
  3. Philanthropies, think tanks, and political organizations

There are ideal customer profiles (ICPs) among those types of clients. While many of the roles and demographics are shared across the client “buckets,” their pain points and goals demand discrete buying personas.

Use the following ICP details to better understand who is (potentially) buying Gradient’s services on both an individual and organizational level. These are the kinds of people you should target when reaching out to warm or cold contacts.

General Guidelines

Prospects who have the authority to make decisions on investing in Gradient’s services are going to be Director and VP-level; generally, the most time and investment should be in securing meetings with them. Next priority is C-level contacts and last is managers.

Typically, prospects who are newer (but not too new) to their organizations are the ones most likely to try to drive change and more likely to want to engage Gradient in a partnership. The longer a contact has been with a company, generally, the more content they are with the status quo. That said, we start by targeting prospects who have been with their organizations for two years or fewer, followed by contacts who have been there two to five years, followed by five plus years.

Blue chip and legacy brands

Larger organizations make a perfect fit for Gradient to augment their own internal data and research teams. They have large budgets and like to have strategic partnerships.

Champions within these companies tend to be senior, like:

  • Director of Brand Reputation or Consumer Insight
  • VP of Marketing
  • Also consider titles with the following terms in their title: Data, Analytics, and Insights

Large, well-established institutions that might be professional service firms but also include consumer brands like the following past clients, that do a lot of research:

  • McKinsey
  • Amazon
  • Nike
  • They often need help in refining their positioning and messaging.
    • Many of these blue chip brands need to refine their messaging but first must understand how to position themselves relative to their competition.
    • They’re trying to be preemptive–they don’t have a crisis on their hands yet.
  • Often need help to better understand their audience
    • The values may no longer resonate with their audience (i.e., McKinsey “turning” elitist).
  • Sometimes need help setting their pricing.
  • They are looking for candid feedback on the shifts the modern world requires of a legacy brand (i.e., what are we lacking now based on how the world’s shifted?).
  • Positioning analysis relative to competitors.

Creative and brand agencies

Roughly 33% of Gradient’s current customers are agencies. These companies are easy to identify and generally open to taking meetings and spending money if it makes business sense. Will typically result in long-term partnerships.

Champions within these companies tend to be senior, or even leaders at smaller agencies. Think of:

  • CEO
  • VP/Director of (Data, Analytics, Insights, etc.)

Medium to large brand strategy or creative agencies such as the following past and current clients:

  • C-Space
  • Media Monks
  • Bread & Butter
  • Co:collective
  • Lippincott
  • They often need help answering strategic questions with data so they can optimize the value they bring to their client engagements.
    • E.g., segmentation of their clients’ customer base to optimize ad spend and craft distinct creative.
  • They lack statistical and analytical resources and expertise.
  • Increase understanding of their clients’ brand.
  • Enrich their own data teams with more analytical prowess and expertise.

Philanthropies, think tanks, and political organizations

Roughly 33% of Gradient’s current customers are philanthropies/think tanks, and political orgs. They are some of our longest-standing (and highest paying) clients. They are more likely to partner with us than legacy brands.

Champions within these companies tend to be senior, or even leaders at smaller agencies. Think of:

  • CEO
  • VP/Director of (Data, Analytics, Insights, etc.)

Corporate Philanthropies and Think Tanks such as the following current clients:

  • Populace
  • CZI
  • The Just Trust
  • ACLU
  • City Fund Action
  • They aim to instigate change in how Americans perceive various subjects, from diversity to other significant societal challenges; however, they often find themselves running into a wall due to a lack of comprehensive, actionable data which takes time, expertise, and resources to gather.
  • As such, they value partnerships and are keen on working with entities that can help them achieve their mission (like Gradient).
  • Influence societal perspectives or address systemic societal issues.
  • Increasing revenue
  • Increasing vote-share
  • Increasing donations toward an issue