What is a Customer Profile?

What can a customer profile do for your business?

The truth about marketing is that your business can’t be everything to everyone. If you try, you risk selling to an audience that’s too broad and ambiguous. 

So, how do you build a solid customer base? It’s simple. Start with a customer profile.

Also known as a consumer profile, a customer profile tells you everything you need to know about your current customers. It identifies crucial customer data, such as buying patterns, demographics, and pain points, and presents it as a detailed description of an ideal customer to direct and inspire your team.

The customer profile differs from a buyer persona. Although often used synonymously, a buyer persona is a fictionalized representation of a target customer with imaginary attributes and needs, while your ideal customer profile is based on existing data extracted from a group of customers who already love your brand. 

This article will examine the benefits of customer profiles, data points to analyze, and how to construct a profile.

Benefits of Customer Profiling 

Through customer profiling, marketers gain the data needed to craft marketing strategies that drive the most emotional value. Salespeople benefit in the same way, using customer profiles to narrow down their pools of prospects.

Here are a few other great things about customer profiling. They can: 

Identify the Ideal Customer 

A customer that you know will benefit from your products or services is more likely to close than those you’re unsure of. It’s in your best interest to know who your ideal customers might be and where they might be found.

By identifying who this person is, and others like them, you’ll generate better prospects and deals for your business—improving your sales process.

Lower the Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)  

Customer acquisition cost (CAC) measures the price of attracting a single customer. You can cut costs here by building sales and marketing campaigns around your ideal customer.

The more you know about them—and the more pointed your marketing message is—the greater chance you have of appealing to them. This lessens the need for untargeted, more expensive marketing efforts. 

Create More Targeted Content 

A customer profile offers a window into different customers’ lifestyles. By optimizing your content around this profile, you can produce the newsletters, blog articles, and podcasts you know your target audience will benefit from.

Improve Customer Loyalty 

A profile can also help you improve the customer experience. Supported by an overview of their likes and dislikes, you can pinpoint your customers’ pain points and develop new products, services, or features to satisfy unrealized needs and promote brand loyalty.

This even extends to referrals! By identifying others in their demographic, you can encourage loyal customers to spread the word and incentivize repeat purchases with every successful referral.

How to Create a Customer Profile

A customer profile offers a simple way for you to understand your current customers’ needs. It puts you on the path to create new products, services, and features that will benefit them while attracting potential customers in the same demographic!

We’ve broken down how to create a profile in a few easy-to-follow steps: 

Identify Your Best Customers

The first step is to determine your best customers according to your existing customer base.

For example, who has been with you the longest? Who have you got referrals and testimonials from? Who have you partnered with or featured in your case studies? 

Make a list of high-value customers, then narrow down a handful who’ve truly benefited from your products or services and would likely be interested in repurchasing.

Collect Customer Feedback

Although hard data is valuable, you should never neglect the human element of your customer profile. 

Surveys and other customer feedback tools can help you fill in the gaps customer segmentation and profiling might not reveal. You can also conduct a customer interview to get a read on their reactions in real-time and foster a deeper connection with your brand.

Analyze Demographic Information 

Now consider your top customers’ shared characteristics. Look at the profiling data you’ve gathered from business intelligence networks like Owler, and categorize your best customers according to these attributes. 

For example, if you sell baby care products, you might want to segment the mothers in your target audience according to their shared age range, location, interests, values, etc. 

Explore Data from Online Channels

How your audience interacts with you online also offers valuable insight! Analyze metrics across your online marketing channels (email, web, social media, etc.) and research the topics, search terms, hashtags, and platforms your top customers have a shared interest in. 

Build a Customer Profile Template  

Once you’ve surveyed your best customers, compile and restructure your research into a single, cohesive customer profile. This profile should have all the traits and interests of a real person (name, age, location, gender, etc.) based on the shared attributes of your customers. You may even include a picture to illustrate your ideal customer. 

(Need a little inspiration? There are plenty of customer profile examples online to use as a reference. Free templates are also available, but it’s not a bad idea to create your own.)

Join Owler and Build Your Customer Profile Today!

Business owners who use customer profiles understand their target market better than those who don’t. 

By analyzing and categorizing key characteristics, your customer profile will serve as an accurate portrayal of your target market. Armed with this intel, both sales teams and marketing teams can then go on to develop lucrative strategies for appealing to, connecting with, and winning over your present and future customers.

To help you get started, we recommend pairing Owler Max with your CRM and Slack. 

Simplify intelligence gathering with our extensive registry of company profiles and accurate datasets. You can also follow industry movements on Owler and identify trends, topics, and major changes affecting your customers.

Sign up for free with Owler Community and gain access to the information needed for a refined customer profile. You can also reach out to learn more about our special intelligence-gathering features, which are exclusive for teams!