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<\/a><\/p>\nIn this article, I\u2019ll explore customer profiling, explain why it\u2019s more important than ever in today\u2019s market, provide a practical 10-step process for creating a customer profile, and look at some customer profiling examples. I\u2019ve also included some free templates<\/a> (which I\u2019ll go over in detail below) to make it easier.<\/p>\n Table of Contents<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/a> <\/p>\n <\/strong><\/p>\n From my years in customer experience, I\u2019ve learned that trying to appeal to everyone means you connect with no one. Early in my career at a digital marketing agency, I saw campaigns fail because we targeted too broadly. A customer profile is a strategic tool for your business. It helps you focus on your ideal customer and understand their needs clearly.<\/p>\n For example, a customer profile might include:<\/p>\n <\/a> <\/p>\n <\/strong><\/p>\n <\/a> <\/p>\n In today\u2019s fast-paced, competitive world, customer profiling is necessary. Whether you\u2019re starting a new business, adjusting your marketing plan, or supporting your sales team, knowing your customers is the basis for success. Without it, you risk wasting effort by trying to solve every problem for every person.<\/p>\n In my career, I\u2019ve noticed that customers likely to buy from me in the future often share traits with past customers. This is a pattern, not a random occurrence. Profiling helps you identify these high-value customers and focus your efforts on them.<\/p>\n According to Forbes, 81% of customers<\/a> prefer companies that offer a personalized experience, and 70% say a personalized experience where an employee knows who they are and their history is important.<\/p>\n The market is crowded, and customers have many choices. Their attention is limited. If you don\u2019t understand your audience, you may create a product or service that doesn\u2019t meet anyone\u2019s needs.<\/p>\n Customer profiles help your product team build useful features, your marketers create effective messages, and your salespeople pursue leads that are more likely to buy.<\/p>\n <\/a> <\/p>\n Customer profiling provides clear advantages for your business. Here are some of the main benefits I\u2019ve personally noticed.<\/p>\n A customer profile ensures everyone in your organization understands the customer. Here\u2019s how it supports each team.<\/p>\n When teams share the same information, they work better together.<\/p>\n Not every lead is a good fit. Customer profiling shows you who benefits from your product, helping you find more like them.<\/p>\n During my time at SmartRecruiters, we shifted focus from pursuing any available lead to targeting prospects who matched our ideal customer profile<\/a>. Within months, we saw our conversion rates improve.<\/p>\n Reduces Customer Acquisition Costs (CAC)<\/strong><\/p>\n Customer acquisition cost is the money you spend on marketing and sales campaigns to attract a single customer. Implementing customer profiling allows you to focus your efforts on people who are more likely to become customers, which brings customer acquisition costs down in the long run.<\/p>\n For example, 71% Gen Z use mobile most often<\/a> when shopping online. If you\u2019re building a product or service targeting that group of consumers, this is good to know for your customer profiling efforts.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve personally discovered this to be true when running social media ads for my business. A well-defined customer profile means I can target the right people online and lower my ad spend.<\/p>\n Social media is also a major discovery engine, with 1 in 4 consumers<\/a> reporting they\u2019ve discovered a new product on social media in the past three months.<\/p>\n When your support team has access to detailed profiles, they can anticipate problems and respond to individual needs.<\/p>\n As Rami El-Abidin<\/a>, a former HubSpot Support Team member and current blog writer says, \u201cWe always kept detailed notes on each customer, including the issues they had in the past and their needs\/goals. Armed with this information, I was much better equipped to meet customers where they were and guide them to success.\u201d<\/p>\n This level of service builds loyalty and trust.<\/p>\n Offering proactive and personalized experiences is a big part of building trust and fostering customer loyalty. According to a Zendesk benchmark report, 62% of consumers<\/a> agree that personalized recommendations are better than general ones, and 6 in 10 consumers notice and appreciate receiving personalized recommendations.<\/p>\n When customers feel understood, they\u2019re more likely to stay loyal.<\/p>\n Customer churn refers to losing customers. We can all agree we want to keep that number as low as possible! A Databox study found that over 67% of surveyed SaaS companies<\/a> stated that they\u2019ve dealt with a high churn rate.<\/p>\n Source<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n By creating strong customer profiles from the start, you can attract and serve customers who actually want to use your product or service \u2014 reducing customer churn<\/a> in both the short and long term.<\/p>\n <\/a> <\/p>\n It\u2019s clear that customer profiling is valuable and effective, but how do you start? It\u2019s easy to feel overwhelmed with data, but don\u2019t worry \u2013\u2013 I\u2019ve got you covered. A strong customer profile relies on four main types of data.<\/p>\n Demographic data are the concrete characteristics of a customer and can be used to understand consumer behavior.<\/p>\n We did a ton of research on our core demographic at Trendy Butler, a subscription-based clothing brand, where we used AI to tailor personalized items for customers. Back then, customers could interact with an AI agent<\/a> that would capture their details and establish data points for the recommendation engine to work.<\/p>\n Demographics include the following traits (and more):<\/p>\n If you’re in the B2B space, consider attributes such as company size, industry, and other organizational characteristics.<\/p>\n Rami El-Abidin shared a good example of what this looks like in practice: \u201cMy music backline rental business is technically B2B, and my customer demographics are segmented by events such as weddings\/bar mitzvahs\/graduations, music festivals, and touring artists who can\u2019t travel or fly with all their gear. Each type of customer has different needs, and understanding customer segments helps me anticipate and meet them.\u201d<\/p>\n Demographics alone aren\u2019t enough to understand how, when, and why people make purchasing decisions, and that\u2019s where psychographics come in.<\/p>\n These factors relate to the attitudes and psychological makeup of a customer and may include:<\/p>\n Psychographics help you understand the buying journey and even the customer journey after they’ve already purchased from you.<\/p>\n Pro tip:<\/strong> Tools like HubSpot’s free email tracking software<\/a> make it easy to measure these improvements by showing you exactly how and when prospects engage with your segmented campaigns.<\/p>\n While psychographics relate to psychological attributes, behavioral segments look at how that’s manifested in action.<\/p>\n You may consider segmenting by:<\/p>\n Segments based on behavioral traits are among the most valuable in customer support. They can help service teams find insights about customer interaction and how these trends manifest into recurring revenue and satisfaction rates.<\/p>\n And once those things are measured, they can be improved. In other words, keeping a close eye on both sales and customer service data is necessary to get concrete details about your consumer base\u2019s behavior.<\/p>\n Pro tip:<\/strong> An all-in-one platform<\/a> that blends sales tools with customer service and marketing features makes this process a lot easier \u2014 you get easy access to analytics data across multiple departments, along with the tools necessary to act on that data.<\/p>\n Geographical factors are relevant when location affects how customers interact with a brand or receive their products.<\/p>\n Here are popular ways to segment based on geography:<\/p>\n Gaining insights based on geography can help your organization think through logistics, support implementation, and marketing.<\/p>\n The relevance of geographic data depends on the type of business you run. In my current position running a customer loyalty program at Skybound with physical rewards and prizes, geographic data is very relevant because I can only serve these prizes to customers domestically, as opposed to globally (due to certain restrictions and legal regulations).<\/p>\n However, if you run a software business or sell products online, geographic data has a different level of relevance. Regardless, knowing where your customers are is helpful in understanding more about them and their needs.<\/p>\n Once you have this data, you can focus on how to create a customer profile based on specific types or customer segments<\/a>.<\/p>\n <\/a> <\/p>\n Remember when I said earlier that truly understanding your customers is non-negotiable? You need a crystal-clear, data-backed customer profile to guide your marketing, sales, and product development efforts. With the right strategies and a bit of elbow grease, you can unlock a treasure trove of insights about your audience.<\/p>\n Here are some proven strategies to help you create a customer profile that\u2019s both accurate and actionable.<\/p>\n This is where we go beyond the basics. Sure, demographics are important, but they only tell part of the story. Psychographics delve into the \u201cwhy\u201d behind your customers\u2019 actions. Look at their values<\/strong>, interests<\/strong>, and motivations<\/strong> beyond surface-level traits.<\/p>\n During my time at Yahoo working on programmatic ad campaigns, I found that digging into customer psychographics led to more effective messaging and higher engagement. When you know what drives your audience, your product resonates on a deeper level.<\/p>\n Pro tip:<\/strong> Don\u2019t just focus on who you\u2019re targeting; understand why they engage.<\/p>\n In this approach, we split up consumers into different segments based on their motivations, mindsets, and how to engage them. It\u2019s true what they say \u2013\u2013 not all customers are cut from the same cloth.<\/p>\n Here are the four main types of consumers.<\/p>\n Pro tip:<\/strong> Identify your most valuable segments and tailor your engagement strategies accordingly. For example, pamper your loyal customers with exclusive perks and personalized recommendations while enticing discount seekers with targeted promotions and limited-time offers.<\/p>\n This method investigates what factors influence purchasing decisions. Modern consumers are defined by many common qualities. Here are three that stand out to me.<\/p>\n Pro tip:<\/strong> Use behavioral analytics and A\/B testing<\/a> to validate and refine your consumer characteristics. They evolve with market trends and user expectations.<\/p>\n <\/a> <\/p>\n <\/strong><\/p>\n Based on my experience developing profiles for various businesses, here\u2019s a clear, practical guide for how to create a customer profile of your own.<\/p>\n Downloading and using <\/span>pre-made templates<\/a> can shorten the customer profiling process. We’ll discuss<\/span> what you\u2019ll find in these templates later in the post. But if you can\u2019t wait, download them now<\/a> and follow along as we cover the rest of the steps.<\/p>\n Source<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n Once you start creating customer profiles, you’ll need several types of software.<\/p>\n Remember, you must collect data from your current customer base to create effective and accurate profiles.<\/p>\n Additionally, tools like AI chatbots can enhance this process by engaging customers directly, gathering real-time feedback, and even automating data collection for your profiles. Curious about which ones to use? Check out this guide to the best AI chatbot picks<\/a> and streamline your profiling efforts.<\/p>\n Pro tip:<\/strong> I recommend starting with tools you already have before investing in new ones. Often, your existing tech stack contains untapped potential for customer insights.<\/p>\n Start with external demographics to understand who your ideal customers are. Then, dig deeper into their needs and how your product or service solves them.<\/p>\n Here are key external attributes to consider:<\/p>\n Demographics help you create a clear, focused picture of who you\u2019re serving \u2013 setting you up for more personalized, effective marketing.<\/p>\n Customer feedback is one of the best ways to better understand your customers. There are a few ways you can effectively gather this feedback.<\/p>\n The most valuable insights come from asking simple questions like, \u201cWhat made you choose our product?\u201d or \u201cWhat almost stopped you from buying?\u201d<\/p>\n As you begin examining your customer profile data, you should contextualize it using your customer journey map.<\/p>\n When creating HubSpot\u2019s customer journey map, we asked users how they felt about specific points in the customer experience. Then, we charted these stories on the map to see how customer perceptions changed.<\/p>\n This gave us a good idea of what our customers liked and didn\u2019t like about our products. By understanding their needs, challenges, and goals, you\u2019ll develop a stronger sense of what your customers want from your business.<\/p>\n Pro tip:<\/strong> Use HubSpot\u2019s free customer journey map template<\/a> to get started.<\/p>\n Source<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n It\u2019s easy to get lost with such a wealth of data. If you find yourself overwhelmed, return the focus to the problem your business is trying to solve.<\/p>\n I remember going through this exercise at a subscription-based business I previously worked with. They discovered that while they marketed their product as a \u201ccomprehensive solution,\u201d customers actually valued one specific feature that saved them hours of manual work each week. This insight transformed how we positioned the business.<\/p>\n Once you’ve defined the external factors that describe your customer profile, it\u2019s time to dig deeper into contextual details. For example, if I\u2019m running a SaaS company, I\u2019d want to ask about:<\/p>\n Understanding these contextual elements helps you position your offering within the customer\u2019s existing ecosystem.<\/p>\n One important detail you should consider is where your brand falls compared to others in the industry. This gives you a good idea of the type of customer you want to attract and retain. It helps to learn the following.<\/p>\n This competitive context helps you emphasize true differentiators rather than features everyone offers.<\/p>\n Effective personas go beyond demographics to tell a story about the customer\u2019s life, challenges, and goals. I\u2019ve found that giving personas names and backstories helps teams remember that they\u2019re serving real people, not just data points. Learn to create detailed descriptions of ideal customers with HubSpot\u2019s guide and free template<\/a>.<\/p>\n Here are some key things to uncover about the people in your customer profile:<\/p>\n Pro <\/strong>t<\/strong>\n
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Why is customer profiling important?<\/strong><\/h2>\n
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<\/p>\nCustomer Profiling Benefits<\/strong><\/h2>\n
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<\/p>\nHelps Teams Work More Effectively<\/strong><\/h3>\n
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Finds Better Customers<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Improves Customer Service<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Drives Loyalty Through Personalization<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Lowers Customer Churn<\/strong><\/h3>\n
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<\/p>\nTypes of Customer Profile Data<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Demographic<\/strong><\/h3>\n
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Psychographic<\/strong><\/h3>\n
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Behavioral<\/strong><\/h3>\n
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Geographic<\/strong><\/h3>\n
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Customer Profiling Strategies<\/strong><\/h2>\n
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<\/p>\n1. Psychographic Segmentation<\/strong><\/h3>\n
2. Consumer Typology<\/strong><\/h3>\n
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3. Consumer Characteristics<\/strong><\/h3>\n
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Step 1: Start with <\/strong>customer profile templates<\/a><\/strong>.<\/strong><\/h3>\n
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<\/a><\/p>\nStep 2: Choose your profiling tools.<\/strong><\/h3>\n
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Step 3: Dig into demographics.<\/strong><\/h3>\n
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<\/p>\nStep 4: Collect customer feedback.<\/strong><\/h3>\n
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Step 5: Map the customer journey.<\/strong><\/h3>\n
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<\/a><\/p>\nStep 6: Focus on the problem you solve.<\/strong><\/h3>\n
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Step 7: Examine contextual details.<\/strong><\/h3>\n
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Step 8: Understand your industry position.<\/strong><\/h3>\n
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Step 9: Build personas.<\/strong><\/h3>\n
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