Is your ICP actually an ICP… or is it just “women aged 25 to 45” in a trench coat? 😅
In this episode of Blame It On Marketing, Emma and Ruta are joined by Ada, CMO of the Year in Lithuania and marketing leader at Norcurrent, the biggest Baltic mobile gaming company, to talk about ideal customer profiles and why most companies still get them painfully wrong.

We get into what ICPs really are, how gaming uses customer behaviour to understand value, and why B2B marketers need to stop confusing personas, demographics, target audiences and actual profitable customer segments.

Marketing confession of the episode:
Ada once billed a client £1 million instead of £100,000. A tiny extra zero. A very large panic.

We get into:
✅ What an ICP actually is: the customers who bring the most mutual value
✅ ICP vs target audience vs persona — and why mixing them up causes chaos
✅ Why your ICP should not live only in marketing
✅ How gaming uses behaviour, retention and spend to identify “whales”
✅ Why usage data should be part of every B2B SaaS ICP
✅ The big B2B problem: marketing often doesn’t get enough product or adoption data
✅ How to find your ICP: start with revenue, look for patterns, then interview customers
✅ Why “we can sell to everyone” usually means wasted budget
✅ Buyer vs user: why the person who signs the contract isn’t always the person who drives retention
✅ How customer service, product, sales and marketing should all use ICP insights
✅ Why retention data and usage signals can help you spot the customers worth keeping

If your company still thinks an ICP is “anyone with budget,” this one’s for you.

Like, subscribe, and comment with the worst ICP you’ve ever been handed.

#B2BMarketing #ICP #MarketingStrategy #SaaSMarketing #CustomerResearch #ProductMarketing #MarketingLeadership #AIinMarketing

Going after a new segment sounds sexy… until you actually try to do it. 😅
New vertical, new geography, new buyer, new motion — and suddenly everything breaks: messaging, pricing, onboarding, customer success, and your sanity.

In this episode, Emma and Ruta are joined by Anastasia, founder of B2B Practitioners, to talk about when segment expansion is actually smart — and when it’s a fast track to chaos (especially in seed and Series A land).

Marketing confession of the episode:
Anastasia changed lead scoring in HubSpot and accidentally applied it to older contacts… nuking the MQL and SQL stages. Reversible, but emotionally scarring.

We get into:
✅ The first question to ask: why do you want a new segment — and have you actually exhausted the current one?
✅ The 18-month reality test: how likely are you to win this segment in the next year and a half?
✅ ICP validation when you have no customers there yet: 10 to 15 interviews, then patterns and buying triggers
✅ Disqualifying hard: why 60 percent ICP fit should often be a no
✅ Expansion myths: “Let’s just break into the US” and why CAC and competition explode
✅ Partnerships and relationships: the fastest way into a segment (and why cold entry is brutal)
✅ AI positioning: “AI-enabled” is not differentiation — outcomes are
✅ Product vs marketing: how to spot a product-market fit problem (Sean Ellis test, discount dependence, early churn)
✅ Service vs software tension: when customers want the service but investors want SaaS ARR
✅ Operational readiness: what must change across product, pricing, marketing, sales, and CS when you pick a new segment
✅ The vertical-agnostic trap: why “we can sell to everyone” usually means wasted spend and worse retention
✅ Healthy churn: why letting bad-fit customers go can actually strengthen your brand and flywheel

If your team is about to say “Let’s go after a new segment” — play this first. It’ll save you six months of pain.

#B2BMarketing #GTM #StartupMarketing #ICP #ProductMarketFit #ABM #MarketingStrategy #RevOps #AIinMarketing

We’re Ruta and Emma, the marketing consultants behind Blame it on Marketing.

If you’re in B2B SaaS or professional services and looking to do marketing that actually drives revenue and profit, we’re here for it.

Visit blameitonmarketing.com and let’s get this show on the road.

B2B influencer marketing is having a moment… but most teams are still treating it like a vibes-based experiment. 😅
In this episode, we take a different angle: B2B influencers as a paid media channel, and what changes when you treat it like a proper media buy.

We’re joined by Will and Chris from Moon at Dawn to break down paid, owned, and earned media, where influencers sit across all three, and how to measure impact without pretending a single post is going to “drive pipeline” on its own.

Marketing confessions included:

• Chris dropped an uncomfortable truth bomb to a client at 3pm on a Friday
• Will accidentally copied an influencer into a brutal client feedback email thread (nightmare fuel)

We get into:
✅ Paid vs owned vs earned, and why influencer sits across all three
✅ Why “pay-to-play” is only the starting point (collaboration beats basic promotion)
✅ The real problem with influencer selection: too much gut feel, not enough data
✅ Moneyball for influencers: choosing creators based on outcomes, not hype
✅ New measurement thinking: “resonance” and depth of impact with hard-to-reach ICPs
✅ How to make influencer work in B2B with paid distribution, not just organic reach
✅ When celebrity speakers work (and when they’re just expensive entertainment)
✅ How to start small: plug influencers into what you are already doing and test messaging pillars
✅ Beyond LinkedIn: why YouTube and Substack matter, plus LLM discoverability and citations
✅ Marketing gossip: talent agencies slowing deals, and LinkedIn building a creator marketplace

If you’ve been told to “just work with a few influencers” but nobody can explain how to measure it, budget it, or scale it… this episode will save you a lot of pain.

Like, subscribe, and drop your biggest B2B influencer question in the comments.

#B2BMarketing #InfluencerMarketing #PaidMedia #MarketingStrategy #LinkedInMarketing #ABM #MarketingOps