Understanding your customer is the basic requirement of any successful marketing. The more you know about the people who buy from you the more likely you are to be able to speak to them successfully and get them engaged.

Having customer profiles will enable you to target different groups of customers effectively and get the most out of your marketing activities.

Here’s our handy guide on how to create a customer profile:

1) Get the basics right

First off, you need define your customers by certain similarities including:

– Behaviour: what they like, interests, activities, and so on

– Demographics: their age, gender, location, marital status

– Phsychographics: personal traits, preferences and so on

2) Find out where they are

 It might seems obvious but you need to know where your customers are and where they ‘hang out.’ For example, are your customers more likely to use Facebook or LinkedIn? Don’t just guess either – there’s plenty of data out there to help you to understand where your target market is. Remember to also think about the kinds of terminology they might be using to search online.

3) How do they like to do things?

Get to know about how your customers like to shop. What kind of research do they do and where? What is their problem or need? What are the benefits to finding a solution?

4) Ask!

Get in touch with your current customers to learn more about where they found you, why they chose you and what experience they’ve had with you. You can use this information to develop your processes for customer retention and for gathering new business.

5) Analyse the groups you’ve identified 

You can turn each different group into a persona or client profile, which describes images of ideal clients, either real or a hypothetical individual. Doing this exercise will make that group tangible and enable you to imagine how that person would respond to certain marketing tactics.

What do you think? Let us know in the comment box below.

By Harriet Thacker