How to Define Your Customer Profile to Reach Your Demographic

Customer profiling may sound like a politically incorrect term used in airport security but it’s actually an innocent business term for understanding who your customers are.

Imagine a manual for how to most effectively reach your target demographic with details on what they like to buy, how much the spend, how they use your products or services, what will help retain their custom and what matters most to them as consumers. That is your customer profile.

How to create your ideal customer profile

Customer profiles help you understand the things that matter to your customers so you can tailor your offerings and messages to better appeal to them.

Selling products and services without understanding what your ideal customer looks like is akin to doing paint by numbers with your eyes closed. You’ll get paint on the canvass, so in a sense, job done, but it’s not going to look pretty.

Let’s examine how you can easily create a customer profile to determine your target demographic.

There are four simple parts to creating profiles for the customers your business should be targeting: Describe. Connect. Locate. Understand.

Describe

The first thing you need to do is create a description sheet for each of your ideal customers. You need to determine, in a broad sense, the two or three main types of customer you have or want.

Build profiles by sorting customers using these basic criteria:

  • Demographics – age, gender, income, location, etc.
  • Psychographics – personality, values, opinions, attitudes, interests lifestyles etc.

If you work B2B then what you should define includes: Sector, number of employees, revenue and budget, national/global reach, and decision-making process.

Each type of customer will have varying motives for why they chose your company or your product. Not appreciating their individual motives means you cannot address their individual needs. Don’t lump them together.

Connect

Lots of companies use data-mining or just good old-fashioned polling of their customers to gather information. Interview your current customers and ask them what they like about you, what they don’t; what attracted them to you, how they found you originally; what makes them stay, what makes them want to leave; what others do they wish you did, what you do others don’t. Encourage complete honesty.

The information you get back will enable you to create your customer profiles. This information is vital in so many ways. It not only allows you to use that information in the most effective manner for your market strategies but also gives you invaluable feedback on your strengths and weaknesses.

Locate

Knowing where your customers are isn’t as simple as where they live. We covered that kind of location in demographics. What you want to know is where they go — be that physically or digitally. Where do they spend their time? What websites are they visiting? What papers do they like to read? What social media networks are they attracted to? What do they search for on the internet? Where do they go on holiday? What continents do they prefer to visit?

When you understand where your customer types are at any given time you can target them more effectively. You might be spending money on ad spaces in a national gym with loads of members but few of them fit your customer profiles. That’s wasted money but it can sometimes seem like a good idea to go for numbers.

Knowing where your customers are located can help you decide what numbers make more sense. A small online forum where the average user is 60% likely to fit one of your profiles or a national newspaper with 5x the active readers but with an average profile fit of 25%?

Understand

We all have a purchasing process — an unconscious method for making spending decisions. Understanding what drives your customers to make the decisions they do is a key part of building a winning strategy.

You need to understand what their problem or need is. Are they making purchases proactively or reactively? Are they trying to fix a problem or fulfilling a desire? How are they researching solutions to their problem? How are they researching ways to fulfil their need? What benefits are they looking for?

How are they making their final decision? Are they looking at reviews? Comparing features and benefits with competitors? Are they buying on a whim? Do they need to get approval?

When you understand how they make purchases you can tailor your message to speak to them on their level. Your strategy can be designed to match the flow of their purchasing process resulting in higher conversions.

Create personas

One of the best ways to create specific profiles for each distinct group is to name them and give them a picture — this is known as a persona. Visual aids are really helpful in building customer personas and familiarising your team with the motives, desires and concerns of that type of customer. Also, down the line it will enable seamless switching of strategy between customer sets.

An extraneous example would be marketing for a new face cream. A broad target would be “active females in their 30s and 40s”. Customer profiling could allow you to break that down into ‘Molly the stay at home mum’, ‘Charlotte the career woman’ and ‘Adventurous Alice’.

Molly is in her mid-30s; she has two children, one at school, the other is under a year. She lives in the suburbs, drives a hatchback and has a household income of $80000. She doesn’t get much sleep so is concerned her skin is starting to look tired. She wants to try a new face cream but is easily put off by negative reviews on a mum’s blog forum she visits most days.

Charlotte is in her late 20s, has no children and is dating. She drives a convertible, lives in the city, travels for work a lot and earns $50000. She has noticed a few wrinkles around her brow and wants sometimes to help smooth them. She’s always busy so tends to take the advice of sales clerks or chooses products she has seen in her favourite magazine which often has free samples.

Alice leads a very active, outdoors lifestyle. She surfs, cycles, swims, rock-climbs and runs. She’s into extreme sports and spends most of her life in the sun. Alice is worried her lifestyle is drying out her skin and wants a product that is compatible with her activities. She tends to use consumer comparison sites to find the best deals and research the benefits of products.

All three would benefit from using the same product but they have different motives, purchasing processes, incomes, backgrounds and lifestyles. You can’t create a campaign that will reach everyone but by creating customer profiles you can create appropriate and targeted campaigns for your ideal customers.

Acutely targeted marketing strategies, created with these ideal customers in mind, should enable you to better reach the new and existing customers to positively affect sales and grow your business.

When Is a Good Time to Rebrand

The decision to re-brand your business is a big one. A lengthy process that can sometimes cost a bit of coin, and it’s certainly a decision not to be taken lightly. However, if done for the right reasons and at the right time, a rebrand can be a great investment to the immediate and future growth of your business.

Done for the wrong reasons and at the wrong the time it can not only be a costly mistake but a PR disaster.  A recent example, one we can all learn from was by a household name, with a product we all grew up with and loved. Arnott’s rebranded their famous Shapes biscuit ‘updating’ some of their renowned flavours in the process. Australia went into meltdown. It’s possible we’re still in the midst of this meltdown as the benefits of this change have yet to be seen or understood.

Another famous example on the worldwide stage was when Coca-Cola made an attempt to re-brand their product to appeal to younger consumers in 1985. A strong consumer backlash forced the company to bring back the original “Coco-Cola classic” a mere three months later.

Evolving

If your business has evolved since opening its doors, it’s possible that the logo and brand you started with is no longer consistent with your current message or offering. It’s good practice to have a brand that consistently reflects your business’s message. New direction is the primary reason for re-branding.

Moving or Expanding

Moving your business or expanding geographically? If your branding includes geographic information or contains messages or meanings that only apply to one area, re-branding to appeal to the new location will be required.

Updating

Has the market or trends within your industry changed considerably? Has your brand become outdated as a result? Your brand reflects your business and is directly responsible for prospective client’s perception of you. An outdated and dull brand will not appeal to new customers- especially if you’re a company that sells these sort of services. It’s important not to get this confused with you feeling bored with your current branding – which can happen to the best of us.

While it is totally normal for any business owner to want to shake things up, it’s vital to recognise that this isn’t a good enough reason to re-brand, at least not on it’s own. If however you’re considering updating due to an outdated logo or niche a complete change may not be needed. A simple refresh may be enough.

Appealing to New Audiences

If you’re wanting to appeal or attract a new audience, then this is a solid enough reason for rebranding and one of the most popular. If you want to break into a new demographic, updating your brand to reflect their behaviours, likes and interests can position your business favourably. It is important to make a well-informed decision backed by research if considering this. Using an experienced agency to assist with re-branding is beneficial beyond the obvious design reasons. An agency familiar with branding will have years of knowledge and tested and tried experiences behind their expertise.

Merging or Acquiring

Another reason you may be considering a rebrand is if your business is merging with another or you are you acquiring a new one? Updating the brand to reflect the new dynamic not only creates and helps keep the brand consistent with offerings and message but it can also be a great marketing and PR strategy. Just be careful not to alienate existing loyal customers.

It’s not only important to get the timing and the reasons for re-branding right but to also make sure it’s done with longevity in mind. We can’t stress how important it is for a brand to remain consistent, solid and trustworthy in the eyes of consumers – no matter what type of business you’re in.

When considering rebranding you need to consider all elements of your business’s marketing platforms. With website and digital being a strong player in today’s business environment it’s important that a brand presents well in a digital environment as well as on traditional promotional material.

Get Expert Advice

Rebranding can be an expensive exercise and even more expensive if it isn’t done right. It’s a good idea (and a good investment) to get advice from a team who know and understand the branding process.

We recently re-branded our business to reflect the growth of our business and have had glowing feedback from many of our partners and customers. Digital is an important part of a re-brand strategy, contact us today to discuss how we can help.

White Knight becomes WK Digital

 

White Knight Web Design was formed in 2008. The name represented a time in the industry where a customer focused quality web designer was needed, given a reasonable proportion of the web industry operated out of their car boots. We worked hard to not only provide quality websites but help those stranded by other companies who couldn’t finish the job.

We’ve grown together with many of our customers who are still with us from the early days.

White Knight to WK blog post image
 

The digital landscape is constantly evolving. We have added an office in San Francisco, at the heart of the evolution. We want to focus on maintaining our core services, but also ensure that you have access to proven cutting edge revolutions in the digital space.

Rebranding to WK Digital reflects your growth and our growth. We are still here to help, but we’ve grown to provide you with more. WK maintains our heritage and our core ethos; but it also reflects our transformation into a mid tier multinational digital agency.

We still have the same dedicated local staff and we remain resolutely focused on you. This rebrand to WK Digital reflects that we are now in a better position to provide you with digital tools that will enhance your competitive position.