The understanding of a customer leads to increasing sales, which is crucial for any business. The goal of any company is to realize who is the customer on the website and learn about his concerns, joys, problems, and even basic things, like his age, gender, location, etc. 

However, customer profiling is a challenging task, which is why many businesses avoid it and try just to ignore this problem, hoping it will be solved itself. 

So, in this article from Weblium, a no-code website builder, you will learn how to create a profile for your customer to enhance his buying experience and increase sales. 

What should customer profiling include?

The creation of a customer’s profile is a complex process that will require analysis and brainstorming. The majority of businesses have a basic idea of who their customers will be. Still, it is crucial to dive deeper and try to understand the average customer better to improve his experience. 

So, the advanced information about the customer should include:

  • Age;
  • Gender;
  • Work (Income);
  • Location;
  • Interests;
  • Necessities; 
  • Problems they might have.

All these factors are not available at the very beginning of the customer profile creation. Basic information, such as age, gender, location, and approximate income, will be easier to manage, but thinking about troubles, joys, and necessities will be much more complicated. So, how to define them correctly?

Why is customer profiling crucial?

The importance of customer profiling is essential due to the fact that a business has to know its customers. The product might be great, but if it can’t reach its audience, it will just lead the company to financial losses. A proper customer portrait will help with the following:

  • Website design;
  • Promotional materials;
  • Increasing sales;
  • Creating special conditions for the customers.

If people receive targeted messages about products and feel like the website was made for them, they will be more likely to buy something. 

Product Analysis

Many companies come to the market with a specific idea and product. The only thing left is just to find the proper audience and sell it. This is why product analysis will be great for customer profiling. The business has to answer two main questions:

  1. What issue does the product solve?
  2. Who will benefit the most from the product?

By answering these questions, the company will “see” the potential customer. For example, if one company sells PC components, the people who will benefit from this will be PC specialists and regular users who want to build a computer themselves. The problem solved will be “available PC parts for anyone to use.” 

Having answers to these questions will help businesses understand other basics, such as age, gender, interests, and necessities. 

Market Analysis

Market analysis will give more understanding of who is more likely to buy specific products. A lot of companies explain their products and tell in their materials which will benefit the most from using them. But there are also some places to find more information about the customers. 

  1. Examine the promotional materials of the competitor. It will show what demographics the company is aimed at, what are the key messages, and how the competitor offers to fix specific issues. 
  2. Examine reviews on the independent websites. In reviews, both positive and negative, people try to describe their experience in as detail as possible to give other users an idea of what they liked or disliked. It will give one company more valid information about the customers in the current market.
  3. Examine highlighted reviews on the company’s website. Usually, companies will show the reviews from their customers to highlight the advantages. Such reviews will show core audiences and will explain why they chose a particular product.

It is an excellent way to learn more about the audience. These actions will help analyze the market, see what customers are looking for, who they are, whether the company will help them with their needs, and potential flaws that competitors may have. 

Surveys

It is not a rare scenario when a business starts reanalyzing its core audience. There are too many cases when companies targeted one group of people and realized that they should either change the core group or expand it to thrive. 

This is the point when surveys will come in handy, and they can be beneficial not only for business but for customers as well. The surveys should include:

  • General questions about the customer. No need to get too personal with questions. Make options, such as age and gender, optional so customers will choose if they want to share them. 
  • Questions about how the customer found the store. It will give the company an understanding of what promotional materials are excellent. Also, it might highlight the social networks the customers are using commonly. 
  • Likes and dislikes (with explanation). This question will help the company understand the opinions about different aspects of the business, such as products, prices, website design, and other things.
  • Occupation (if necessary for business). Occupation is rarely vital for regular eCommerce businesses. Still, a lot of B2B companies might benefit from knowing who their customers are and what benefits they receive from cooperating with one business.
  • Reward for completing the survey. It would be great to give customers something special for filling up the form. A coupon, a little discount, an order bonus, or other things would be much appreciated by customers. 

Surveys are great not only to learn more about the targeted audience, but also a solution to improve the store. However, suppose the company uses surveys for customer profiling. In that case, they can see different people from different areas, which will help shape the portrait of an average customer properly or expand the influence and attract more people from different areas. 

Big Interviews

More extensive interviews will allow customers to express their opinions fully. The main thing a company should understand is that interviews should be rewarded with something. Customers might be happy to be heard, which would be beneficial for the company. 

In the interview, the main goal of the marketer or the owner is to give a client space to talk. No interruptions, just additional questions. The main advantage of this type of customer profiling is that one can invite a representative of one group of clients who will express feelings not only of himself but the feelings of the group as a whole.

It will give more space to grow and will show which group requires more attention from the business.

Conclusion

Customer profiling is not the most straightforward task. Even though everything might be pretty obvious at first glance, one can never be sure that the selected core audience is correct. 

Constant analysis, brainstorming, interviewing, and surveying will help understand individual clients, create a portrait of a whole group, and think about further development of the company.

Feel free to experiment, attract new specialists, and spend more time talking to your clients and trying to understand their views and problems better. This way, you will have the perfect portrait of a customer and give precious advantages to the target audience.