Looking for “the right” way to do customer profiling?
08 | 2024
Looking for “the right” way to do customer profiling?
Buyer personas, segmentation, top consumers, customer profiling - these are just different terms for figuring out who our customers are, how they act, and what makes them tick. So, when companies want to do customer profiling, they often shop around for different ways to do it, trying to find the best fit.
With markets changing and people's behaviours shifting all the time, the role of customer profiling in boosting sales has taken on a whole new meaning.
To tackle this we put together some answers to the questions we get asked the most about customer profiling.
Is there a single correct way to do customer profiling?
I don't think so. It's better to start by figuring out which aspects of the business would benefit the most from understanding what gets customers going and what they value.
In other words, good customer profiling always starts with understanding WHY you're doing it.
There's no one-size-fits-all solution here. What matters is that you work with partners to build content, format, and outcomes that fit your brand's needs. A useful customer profiling tool keeps the focus on what customers think and experience, rather than just what the company wants.
What actually happens during customer profiling?
It usually involves a team effort, often led by an outside expert, to gather all the info and data we have about current and potential future customers. The idea is to bring out as much of our team's hidden knowledge and assumptions about customers as possible, and to spark new ideas and perspectives with some quality questions.
What do we know about our customers already? What do we need to know?
Instead of just looking at basic demographics (like age, gender, income, and where they shop), it's crucial in customer profiling to tap into what really gets people going emotionally.
→ What drives them in life?
→ What are their big dreams?
→ What do they value most?
→ What makes their lives meaningful?
→ How do they like to communicate?
→ What makes them happy?
The best way to start a real conversation between a brand and its customers is to understand how people actually feel about the things related to our products and services. That's how we'll get customers and the brand on the same page, feeling important, and speaking the same language when it comes to products and solutions.
At the end of the day, it's not about how things are; it's about how they feel.
What do You actually get out of customer profiling?
For some, it might be a fancy PDF full of stories, while for others, it could be a guide focusing on the key questions customers ask along their journey. And for someone else, it could be a sales playbook built around customer profiles. Whatever it looks like, the end result should be something that meets the team's needs, identifying, explaining, and illustrating the brand's key profiles and how to use them.
Customer profiling might look a bit different for every brand, but the important thing is that it becomes a useful tool for the sales, marketing, and product development teams to use every day.
How and where do to use customer profiles?
It's a two-way street. Sometimes it's like a mirror, helping us see how well new ideas, products, or messages are working. Other times, it's like a treasure chest of ideas that we can draw from whenever we need inspiration.
A few ways we love to use customer profiling in different business areas:
BRANDING
→ What value does our brand add and who does it speak to? Where do our values align?
SALES AND MARKETING
→ Are we talking to people in the right way and in the right places?
→ Is our messaging hitting home?
→ Where do we connect with our customers best?
DEVELOPING PRODUCTS AND SERVICES
→ What real problems do our products and services solve for our customers?
→ How can we make our existing offerings better or come up with new ones?
CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE
→ How should we talk to and engage with our customers?
→ How do we make our interactions memorable?
→ What kind of service, info, or expertise do our customers expect from us?
How to know if customer profiles actually work?
When customer profiling works beyond dusty pdf’s, it brings all the different parts of the business together, so that everyone understands what value we're delivering to customers and what kind of experience we want them to have, all starting from the same place.