Build a Customer Profile: The Most Important Step in Marketing

Creating a customer profile isn’t something you can take a shortcut on. If you’re not doing it right, your efforts to attract new customers could be in vain. You see, there are many different ways to build a customer profile. But what makes one method more effective than the other? Some marketers think that it all comes down to personal preference and how much time you have to invest in your strategy. However, others believe that there is just as much value in investing time upfront rather than constantly revising your plan as your target market changes and shifts. Regardless of which camp you fall into, building an effective customer profile is essential if you want future business from your current customers and referrals from past customers. Here are some tips on how to build a customer profile:

What goes into a good customer profile?

When you’re building your customer profile, you’ll need to be thorough in order to collect the best possible data.

As you begin collecting information, you’ll want to think about what kind of information you’re really looking for. You want to empathize with your target customer.

– What is their demographic information such as age, income, education level, or family composition?

– What are the psychographics that go along with these demographics, such as size or brand preference?

– What other information are you looking for to determine if the customer is a good fit for your product or service?

Don’t skip the data gathering phase

As tempting as it might be, don’t skip the data-gathering phase. While you may be ready to get to the more fun and exciting (and profitable) part of marketing, you’ll be shooting yourself in the foot if you don’t get the basics correct.

During this phase, you want to make sure that you’re gathering the information that you’ll need to define your customer profile.

This means that you’ll want to make sure that you’re collecting data on your current customers and past customers.

By collecting information from both groups, you’ll be able to create a comprehensive customer profile that includes both the good (similarities) and the bad (dissimilarities).

If you skip this phase, then you’ll be left with a profile that is overly generalized, which will make it harder to identify any trends or patterns in the information that you’re collecting.

Conduct surveys and interviews

As you begin to get a feel for your customers, you’ll want to start conducting surveys and/or conducting interviews with your customers.

By doing this, you’ll be able to learn more about your customers before they even have a chance to tell you what they want.

When conducting surveys, you’ll want to think about how you want to ask your questions.

Some questions may be more effective than others, so you’ll want to make sure that you’re not just asking questions as a way to fill up a survey.

When conducting interviews, you’ll want to think about how you want to structure your conversation with your customers. Again, some conversation patterns may be more effective than others.

For instance, you may find that it’s more effective to open a conversation by asking for referrals than it is to start the conversation with a routine icebreaker question.

Build the foundation of your customer profile

As you continue to collect data, you’ll want to begin building the foundation of your customer profile.

By doing this, you’ll be able to begin defining your ideal customer and identifying commonalities and differences between your ideal customer and your current customers.

During this phase, you’ll want to think about how you want to categorize your customers.

While some businesses categorize their customers in terms of demographics, you may find that categorizing your customers in terms of product usage (e.g. heavy users, medium users, light users) yields better results.

Build an Empathy Map of your ideal customer

An empathy map is a collaborative tool teams can use to gain a deeper insight into their customers. Much like a user persona, an empathy map can represent a group of users, such as a customer segment.

It provides detailed insight into your ideal customer. It allows you to enter the conversation that is happening in your prospects head.

Conclusion

When it comes to marketing, building a customer profile isn’t something that you can take a shortcut on. If you’re not doing it right, your efforts to attract new customers could be in vain.

In addition to building a customer profile that includes demographic information, you’ll want to make sure that you’re collecting information on current customers and past customers.

When you’re building a customer profile, make sure that you’re thorough in order to collect the best possible data. By doing this, you’ll be able to create a comprehensive profile that includes both the good (similarities) and the bad (dissimilarities).