What is a customer profile? Customer profiles allow businesses to understand who purchases from them and why they do so.
This profile includes important customer details like their needs, preferences, and other important demographic information.
This information is used by the business to understand how they can better market to their base.
What Is The Definition of a Customer Profile?
A customer profile details the preferences and needs of a brand's average consumer. Profiles vary widely depending on the business at hand and how they cater to customers.
Most importantly, these profiles include the common needs of a brand's current customers. Focusing on past or potential needs is not part of this process, as customer profiles represent the current "ideal" customer.
Types of Customer Profiles
Customer profiles vary based on the needs of a brand.
However, each type of profile will reveal important data about purchasing habits and reasoning. Below are a few common forms of customer profiles.
Demographics
Customer profiles based on demographics deal with factors like location, age, gender, level of income, education, marital status, and related factors.
The goal of a customer profile is to allow brands to understand where their average buyer comes from. As a result, this information will help them better cater to certain segments of consumers.
If demographic data isn't considered, brands won't know who to target when trying to attract customers.
Behaviors
Basing customer profiles on behavior traits focuses more on the specific actions of a buyer.
For example, a behavioral customer profile will cover the way shoppers interact with a brand and their preferences.
So instead of covering demographic aspects like age, gender, and so on, this type of profile measures the interactions of a consumer.
More specifically, behavior-based customer profiles help brands understand why customers buy a product/service.
Psychographics
Lastly, basing a customer profile on psychographics allows brands to learn about the attitudes and feelings of their shoppers.
Psychographics refers to the emotions associated with a certain customer base, and how that can be leveraged to improve marketing services.
A psychographic customer profile will also allow businesses to work on their emotional connection with consumers.
This step is just as important as any other in establishing customer relationships. The data included in a psychographic customer profile can also help businesses bond with customers over beliefs and messages.
Benefits of Customer Profiles For Your Business
Common benefits of customer profiles include a better understanding of customers, increased retention, loyalty, and improved campaign efforts.
Let's cover these and a few more benefits below!
Lower CAC
Customer profiles can help reduce customer acquisition costs (CAC).
CAC refers to the amount of money a business spends to bring in new customers. We know that customer profiles narrow down desired consumers and related audiences.
As a result, businesses can spend their money wisely based on data from the customer profile. Instead of spending too much and hoping they bring in the right customers, businesses will know who to target and reduce wasted budget.
Identify target audience
As we've covered throughout this post, customer profiles help businesses define their target audience.
When based on accurate data, customer profiles will easily describe customer types. When businesses understand these "types," finding their ideal audience is no longer a shot in the dark.
Instead, brands will know exactly who to cater to and won't have to worry about hitting the wrong audience. What's more, businesses can also use this information to improve other areas of business like products and services.
Reduced Churn
Churn refers to the amount of customers that stopped buying from a brand within a specific time period.
We've learned that customer profiles give businesses key insight into who buys from them. In turn, this can reduce the number of customers that leave said brand.
Customer profiles are fantastic at letting businesses know what the needs of their shoppers are. Once management and related teams can tackle these needs, they will likely see a drop in churn.
Improved Customer Experience
Lastly, customer profiles greatly boost the overall experience of a shopper.
How?
Customer experience is based on the way a shopper interacts with a brand, and in turn, how the brand interacts with them. Customer profiles provide the insight businesses need to understand the best communication methods.
As a result, customers will naturally gravitate towards brands they feel engaged with and listen to their needs. Customer profiles help identify these key factors.
Difference Between B2B and B2C Customer Profiling
B2B (Business-to-Business) and B2C (Business-to-Consumer) customer profiling are two distinct approaches to understanding and categorizing customers based on their characteristics, behaviors, and preferences.
B2B customer profiles include data on organizations, often covering topics like company size, industry details, and more.
Whereas, B2C customer profiles include data on the actual customers--not organizations. As we've covered, these include characteristics related to the consumer.
Let's dive into this a bit more.
Typical B2B Customer Profiles
A B2B customer profile would center around the ideal organization or business.
It would cover key points like business size, location, industry type, and other details. This type of customer profile helps businesses connect with clients, AKA, other businesses.
An effective B2B customer profile works to identify the factors of a business that will ensure it will partner effectively with another business.
Typical B2C Customer Profiles
A typical B2C customer profile targets an actual person versus a business. B2C customer profiles can cover a wide array of information, as we've discussed in this post.
For a quick rundown, B2C customer profiles include information like age, gender, purchasing habits, and emotional factors that lead to buying from a business.
All of these details come together to provide a picture of a brand's "ideal" customer.
How to Create a Customer Profile With Market Research
The best way to create a customer profile is with market research.
Customers will be surveyed to gather accurate data that will allow businesses to make data-driven decisions. The survey process will go like any other market research project.
This includes: Kickoff meeting, survey design, fieldwork, reporting, and a debrief meeting.
In the kickoff meeting, the client will meet with their chosen market research team. After that, the team will craft a survey designed to gather the proper customer data.
Fieldwork is the period of time it takes for the survey to be completed, which is often a few weeks.
After the data comes in, it will be placed into a final report detailing the key findings. In the debriefing meeting, this report will be carefully reviewed with the client.
Recommended Reading: Conducting Customer Surveys [Ultimate Guide]
Contact Our Customer Profile Research Company
Now that you've gained valuable insights into the world of customer profiling, it's time to take action and harness the full potential of understanding your target audience.
At Drive Research, we're more than just a market research company – we're your partners in uncovering the voice of your customers.
Whether you operate in the dynamic landscape of B2B or B2C industries, our experienced team specializes in crafting comprehensive customer profiles through targeted surveys and in-depth analysis.
Contact us today to learn more about our services:
- Message us on our website
- Email us at [email protected]
- Call us at 888-725-DATA
- Text us at 315-303-2040
Lark Allen
As a Content Marketing Specialist, Lark has a strong background and passion for creative, professional, and journalistic writing. She is also a self-proclaimed music freak and 90s enthusiast.
Learn more about Lark, here.
