Discover the importance of the customer profile

Importance of the customer profile. The customer is one factor that determines the success of a company in the market. Without people consuming a product or contracting a service, companies would have no reason to exist.

However, you also have to be aware that not all people are potential customers. Therefore, to find the type of customer to which the company wants to direct its products or services, it is necessary to carry out a customer profile to find the target audience that best suits your products or services.

What is the customer profile?

In easy terms, a customer profile represents a segment of consumers who display similar behaviors before making a purchase.

We can also say that the profile is a set of characteristics that describes our target customer based on several key variables. For example, the high-end smartphone buyer in a store chain may have the following features:

• A person without children, with an average age of 25 years.

• Has a university education.

• Has an income above the average.

• Does sports or exercise several times a week.

• Considers the telephone an essential tool. It allows them to carry out a large part of their professional and personal activities.

While this might be a general profile, there is no question that it provides information on a customer segment.
If we were to ask a marketing expert on the value of this information, what would we get5? Of course, it is likely to require more precision. But without a doubt, these characteristics are input to design campaigns.

Customer profile: the importance

In short, by identifying the characteristics or needs, you can find out what is relevant to customers, so the profile provides information to marketing teams to focus on them.

In other words, they let us know about emotional tendencies and what motivates them—also, information from your social and online environments. The representative profiles of the segments end up being input to make decisions about content strategies and the creation of personalized messages.

Customer profile: Tips to define it

To further highlight those as mentioned above, we can show that the client’s profile is a tool that, among other purposes, allows us to:

• Know and understand customers and users.

• Think about the products and services that they really need, beyond what they claim to demand.

• Design sales strategies focusing on the characteristics defined in the profile.

• Create the ideal channels to contact potential customers with similar profiles.

• Identify what competitors are doing to reach market share.

We need to have data to create the profile or profiles of customer segments. That is why in past articles we comment on the importance of thinking about data from the beginning of sales. Well, not doing so could lead us to lose valuable information.

For example, suppose age is essential to your business. But because of the rush to the bill, you stop taking this data from customers, among others. After a few months, you realize that it is crucial to segment target personalized messages and content. How would you feel?

Characteristics that we must know

Some characteristics of the customer profile we can specify, through observation and purchase analysis, are the following:

1. Demographic data

The client and user can be described based on physical, social, or economic characteristics. For example, the following data is essential: age, gender, marital status, income, educational level, sector in which they are employed, hobbies, etc.

2. Personality

It’s about identifying enduring customer reaction trends. The purpose is to detect traits and qualities that shape the client’s way of being of the client and differentiate it from the others.

3. Values

These result from the interaction of the client or user with the environment in which they have lived. For example, quality is a value that can distinguish one customer from another. Knowing these values allows us to establish long-term relationships.

4. Lifestyle

At this point, we talk about the general pattern of the client’s life, including, for example, how they spend their time and money.

5. Motivations

What is the purpose of the client when acquiring your product or service? For example, are the physiological, safety, self-esteem, and/or personal fulfilled?

6. Beliefs and attitudes

The experiences that a client lives or “suffers” will allow them to develop judgments they consider valid, which lead to beliefs. Attitudes are feelings of liking or disliking something. Therefore, knowing attitudes can help us predict behaviors and behaviors.

7. Learning

It refers to the changes that occur, through experience, their attitudes and behaviors. Customers and users can learn in various ways. Therefore, it is crucial to identify how they do it.

How to build the customer profile?

We must know how to build customer profiles because it is a process from a sequence of activities, which begins with obtaining data, which can come from different platforms and sources.

With the data organized, we proceed to the analysis. Marketing teams need to get as much information as possible to create user profiles.

As we have already pointed out, when analyzing and creating profiles, it is necessary to consider the demographic data of each client (age, income, educational level, hobbies, etc.) and knowing what they value and what language they use to communicate.

Where can we get this data and information from?

1. First, we must involve the key collaborators: Importance of the customer profile 

It is necessary to identify the collaborators and groups that interact directly with customers and with their data. We may ask for your support in sharing your perspective on the audience, general, and their needs. Of course, we are talking about salespeople, collaborators with accounts, marketing, among others.

2. Second, we must always build the profiles with data: Importance of the customer profile 

If the shapes are not backed by customer data, then what we have are assumptions. For this reason, we must use analytical and qualitative research tools to identify categories and interpret and understand the behavior of customers and users.

It is not just about describing customer segments based on data grouping; but also, when possible, detect categories by analyzing the “customer discourse.”

This speech can come from comments, emails, logged calls, among other sources. You can even consider interviews when appropriate.

3. Third, check what they say on social media: Importance of the customer profile 

Today social networks are a source of data and information on almost all kinds of topics. Therefore, marketing teams can use this source to get to know customers regarding personality, values, lifestyle, motivations, etc.

Experts get or identify frustrations, feedback, and types of questions that customers express and ask through these communication channels. Then, applying a qualitative analysis can obtain essential data to create the customer profile by segment.

4. And finally, ask your target population: Importance of the customer profile 

Design surveys and personal interviews. Be careful. This design demands attention! It is not simply creating questions, and that’s it. When possible, seek experts in this field. Otherwise, you run the risk of losing the effort.
If the survey is relevant, you will get relevant data about your customers. The analysis process will lead you to find patterns. This will provide information to know how to personalize their experience with your product/service or brand.

Conclusions

In summary, working on the client’s profile can constitute a decisive competitive advantage depending on the type of company. First, because it allows us to create empathy, a fundamental value in the creation of loyalty. And we already know that a loyal customer can also be a promoter of our product/service or brand.

Although this cannot be determined without having information on the diversity of clients. In addition, by updating profiles, new segments may emerge, given the dynamism of today’s world.