From ICP Research to Segment-Led Content
M-Files could solve a problem for almost every department, which made it hard for any single buyer to see themselves in it. I rebuilt the story around who buys and the one problem they own, and grounded every message in customer evidence.
Company:
M-Files
expertise:
Customer Insight, Messaging
My Role:
Senior Manager, Global Customer Marketing (Product GTM)
When everything is possible, nothing feels urgent.
M-Files manages customer files, project documents, quality records, contracts and compliance workflows. That breadth wins demos but loses first conversations. Our messaging had grown feature by feature, each team told the story differently, and prospects couldn't see their own problem in it.
My experience has taught me: buyers don't purchase a platform. They purchase a fix for a problem they own. If I named the function and led with its biggest pain point, M-Files' breadth would become a reason to expand later rather than a barrier to entry.
For that to work, two things had to be true:
Each function had a pain point sharp enough, and common enough, to lead with.
Leading with one pain point would not shrink M-Files into a point solution.
Three calls: the method, the buyers, the proof.
Each call had to hold up against real customer evidence, not internal opinion.
The method
I researched every function the same way, so each ICP was judged on comparable evidence rather than on who argued loudest internally.
Talk to the people closest to the problem. 1:1s across Product, Engineering, Customer Success, Sales and Enablement to hear how each persona’s problem actually surfaces.
Hear it from customers. 60+ customer interviews shaped the personas and the positioning.
Sit inside real conversations. I shadowed live sales calls to hear the language each buyer used unprompted, and where they pushed back on the existing positioning.
Validate against structured data. I analysed support-ticket themes in Power BI and Salesforce by persona to confirm which pain points were widespread and which belonged to one loud customer.
Ship, then measure. Messaging went live by persona, engagement was tracked by audience, and field feedback went back into positioning and GTM planning.
The buyers
Three functions came out of the research with a clear buyer and a clear pain point.
ICP 1: Customer Information Management
Who buys | Sales and account teams |
|---|---|
The pain point I led with | A fragmented customer view blocks cross-sell and renewal. |
The assumption I tested | Account teams do not wake up worrying about documents. They worry about revenue. |
Why I landed there | It framed M-Files in the commercial language this buyer already uses. |
ICP 2: Project Information Management
Who buys | Project and delivery managers |
|---|---|
The pain point I led with | Scattered project files put budget and timeline at risk. |
The assumption I tested | Delivery leaders feel a document problem as a delivery problem. |
Why I landed there | Budget and timeline are what this buyer is measured on. |
ICP 3: Risk & Compliance Management
Who buys | Risk and compliance officers |
|---|---|
The pain point I led with | Running risk and compliance as separate workstreams duplicates effort and drives up costs. |
The assumption I tested | This buyer already knows the risks. What they struggle to justify is the operating cost of managing them in silos. |
Why I landed there | It gave compliance leaders a business case they could take to finance. |
Extending the model. Once the structure held for the first three functions, it became a repeatable template.
The proof
Every pain point had to survive the evidence before it reached a buyer:
The loudest pain is not always the most common.
Buyers describe problems in their own words, not ours.
Focus will not shrink the platform.
A message is only right if it moves the audience.
Then each function got assets built around its pain point, with one hub bringing them together so the breadth of the platform stayed visible.
What I learned
The focus is how you sell breadth.
Evidence settles arguments.
Use the buyer’s words.
Measure by persona, not in aggregate.
Results
30% engagement lift among priority personas; one narrative shared by Sales, Marketing and Partner teams; the function-led structure still holds across multiple use cases on the M-Files site today.
Amelia’s ability to translate complex product capabilities into compelling, audience-ready narratives made a real difference in market traction.
Laura Carson
Former CMO at M-Files
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