66 percent of businesses think improving their customer’s journey is one of their top priorities. But it’s hard to know how to do that unless you know who your target market is.
One way to better understand your customer is by creating a customer profile. You can also use that profile to create a brand for your business that captures their attention, gains their trust, and promotes lifelong brand loyalty.
If you’re looking for more information on target market profiling, keep reading. We’re sharing everything we know to help you succeed.
What Is a Customer Profile?
It’s a description of a customer or set of customers that includes the following information:
- Geographic location
- Demographics
- Psychographic characteristics
- Buying patterns
- Purchase history
- Creditworthiness
A target profile helps a business make strategic decisions by tracking customer information. It helps create an advantage, especially in highly competitive markets.
What Psychographic Characteristics Are
Psychographics are what your customer’s beliefs and behaviors are. This includes style, hobbies, personality, and even their sense of humor.
These characteristics will help you know exactly how to communicate with them that gets the desired response. You’ll need to survey or strike up conversations with your customers in person or on social media to gather this type of information.
Find Out What They Do For Entertainment
Find out what your customers do for fun. Ask them what they’re interested in and what activities and things make them feel excited.
Discover how they find their favorite forms of entertainment such as:
- Where they find their news
- What music they like
- What radio stations they listen to
- What their favorite tv shows and movies are
- What their favorite websites are
How to Create a Customer Profile
There are several things you should consider before setting up a customer profile. The more you know about your business goals and who you want to reach, the easier it is to design a profile that helps you set up a winning strategy.
Have a Good Understanding of What You Sell and How Customers Use Them
You can’t build a good profile if you don’t understand your own business. If you don’t have a business mission, create one.
Find out why you’re really in business. Figure out what products or services you sell and why. Then determine what makes your business unique from the competition.
Find Out Why Your Customers Buy
Next, find out how your customers use your product or service. This will help you understand their pain point which will help you sell more successfully in the future.
You should also discover the reason why they buy from you as this will help you learn how to sell to them.
Ask Questions
One way to do that is to simply ask your favorite returning customers to answer a few questions such as:
- Why they buy from you
- What they like most about your products/services
- What they like least about your products/services
- What makes your business different
You can either ask them directly or send them an e-mail and offer a slight discount or another type of reward for answering these questions.
Identify Your Customer Based on Various Characteristics
Once you know a bit more about your customer, it’s time to break the facts down into various categories. By identifying them at a deeper level, you create an ideal customer profile which makes it easier to find the best marketing strategies to use.
Here are a few categories to use:
- Gender
- Interests
- Job role
- Geographical location
- Income level
- Education level
- Age range
- How they use your product/service
- What marketing channels will help you reach them
- What role they play in decision-making
One way to gather this information is to use a customer analytics firm. They can gather the data and then formulate a plan.
Keep Your Customer Profile’s Up to Date
Customer information from 10 years ago is useless. A lot of changes can happen in 10 years such as:
- People moving
- Having children
- Losing/changing careers
- Financial gains/losses
Keeping your customer’s profiles up to date means you always have access to information that prevents you from making costly marketing errors.
Continue Giving Customers Surveys to Keep Track of Them
One way to do that is to continue to send out surveys to your current customers. This will help you keep track of their changing habits, environments, and locations.
Surveying your ideal customer will also give you great insight into new products and services you’re thinking of introducing. Having access to that kind of feedback before your company launches a new product or service is invaluable.
Split Them Into Different Revenue Streams
Your customers are not all completely alike. Some will buy from you often while others will remain loyal but only buy your service or product once in a while.
You can break down your customers into three separate groups, small, medium, and large. When you’re finished you can determine which group makes up your biggest revenue stream.
This makes sense because revenue is a good indicator that someone enjoys doing business with you. You can then create marketing strategies for one or all groups based on the traits and characteristics that the group shares in common.
Identify Your Best Customers Who Buy Your Biggest Revenue Stream
Grouping certain customers together do not make them all relevant to you. Instead, focus on those customers who buy from you the most.
Select those customers who you consider to be your best customers within a specific group.
Choose Who to Focus On and Why
That might be those customers who are the quickest to close. They’re the perfect group to focus on if you’ve only owned your business a short while and want to make money quickly.
Perhaps you prefer to focus on those customer’s who make you the most money. This is ideal if you’ve been in business for a while but haven’t reached the level of profitability you’re looking for.
If you’re brand new to the business, target those customers who have the longest average life-time with your business. Loyal customers, especially when you’re building your brand are priceless.
Let Us Help You Brand Your Business
You may find you need help building your customer profile. You may also realize that figuring out your brand on your own isn’t as easy as it seems. We’re branding experts and we can help: click here to contact us.
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