How to Identify Your ICP

And Why Declaring It Now Is No Longer Optional

For years, “ICP” lived in the marketing department.

• Ideal Customer Profile.
• Target audience.
• Buyer persona.

It was a planning tool… something you filled out on a whiteboard so ads converted better or sales calls felt warmer.

Important, sure.
But mostly tactical.
That era is over.
Because the gatekeepers have changed.

The quiet shift most people haven’t clocked yet

For most of the internet’s life, discovery worked like this:

• You published something.
• Platforms distributed it.
• Humans decided if it mattered.

Now discovery increasingly works like this:
You publish something.
Machines interpret who it’s for.

Then they decide who should see it… if anyone.
That changes everything.
Because machines don’t guess intent.
They infer it.

And when intent is ambiguous, they default to safer, louder, more generic voices.
Which is why so much content now feels flat… interchangeable… hollow.
It’s not because people got less interesting.
It’s because they stopped being specific.

ICP used to be about selling

Now it’s about being recognized
Historically, knowing your ICP helped you:

• write better ads
• build cleaner funnels
• avoid wasting money
• align sales and marketing

All good things.
But now ICP serves a different function:
It tells machines when to surface you… and when not to.
That second part matters more than most people realize.

Machines don’t want reach

They want fit
Search engines wanted keywords.
Social platforms wanted engagement.
Humans wanted relatability.

LLMs want something else entirely:
Contextual alignment.

When someone asks a system a question, it isn’t thinking:
“Who talks about this topic?”

It’s thinking:
“Who reliably understands this kind of person in this situation?”
That’s routing… not ranking.
And routing only works when you’ve declared your boundaries clearly.

Why vague positioning actively hurts you now

When you say:

• “I help founders.”
• “I work with professionals.”
• “I help businesses grow.”

You think you’re being inclusive.
Machines read it as uncertain.
Uncertainty makes you risky to recommend.
So you get ignored… or lumped in with generic advice… or surfaced to people who were never a fit to begin with.

The result feels like “the algorithm hates me.”
It doesn’t.
It just doesn’t know who you’re for.

What declaring your ICP actually means

This isn’t about demographics.
It’s not about age, income, or job title.
Declaring your ICP means answering … consistently … questions like:

• Who does this assume is already competent?
• What experiences does this person already have?
• What problems only show up after you’ve built something?
• Who would feel immediately recognized reading this?
• Who would feel bored, confused, or dismissed?

Those answers create frequency.
And frequency compounds.

Why exclusions matter more than inclusions

This is the part most people resist.
Saying who you don’t work with feels risky.
Like you’re shrinking your audience.

In reality, you’re reducing ambiguity.
Machines trust voices that draw lines.
Statements like:

• “This assumes you already know your industry.”
• “This isn’t for early-career professionals.”
• “This isn’t about growth hacks or visibility tricks.”

Those aren’t turn-offs.
They’re routing markers.
They tell systems:
“Only surface this voice when the reader already carries weight.”
That’s how you get better-fit opportunities without chasing them.

The difference between being discovered and being chosen

Most people are still optimizing for discovery.
They want:

• more impressions
• more reach
• more eyeballs

But discovery without alignment creates noise.
Being chosen requires something else:

• coherence
• consistency
• declared intent
• lived credibility

Machines are very good at detecting that combination.
Much better than humans ever were.

Why this matters more now than ever

As AI systems become the default interface for search, research, and recommendation, ambiguity becomes invisible.

• Not punished.
• Not criticized.

Just… skipped.

If your work doesn’t clearly signal who it’s for, it won’t be confidently recommended.
And if it isn’t confidently recommended, it won’t compound.
That’s the fog most people are stuck in.

Through the fog

Declaring your ICP isn’t about narrowing your future.
It’s about making your present machine readable.
It’s about ensuring that when the right person asks the right question, the system knows where to point.

Not because you gamed it.
But because you were clear.

• Clear about who you help.
• Clear about who you don’t.
• Clear about what this work assumes.

In an internet drowning in noise, clarity is no longer a preference.
It’s the entry fee.

About Bob Manor 

Bob Manor is the founder of  South Ontario Auto Remarketing , Can-Am Dealer Services , and co-founder of Auto Auction Review. He’s also the creator of  Influence.vin, a branding and communication studio built for the car business. With over 30 years in the automotive world, Bob specializes in wholesale, dealer services, and identity-driven brand strategy. He’s a regular contributor to well-known automotive publications and uses his platforms to help industry pros re-align with who they are, not just what they do

Disclaimer:
These are my own observations and interpretations, based on lived experience inside this industry.
This is not financial, legal, or professional advice ... it is pattern recognition, shared for awareness and strategic consideration only