What is the Ideal Customer Profile?
Business and marketing intersect when leaders fully understand who their target audience is. This, of course, allows them to create products and services that is likely to be in high demand by these targets.
It also helps sales and marketing teams create collateral to convert leads into potential customers. For this reason, establishing a customer profile is a fundamental step in ensuring that marketing and sales teams are working together perfectly.
This will, in turn, result in higher profits for any organization. Businesses that skip this important step are often disjointed, and team members have no idea who they’re selling to.
Thus, a customer profile (sometimes called a buyer persona) keeps everyone on one accord when it comes to defining a typical customer. To understand what the ideal customer profile looks like, it’s important to first realize what it is.
What is a Customer Profile
A customer profile is a set of demographics, behaviors, activities, and motivations that define a typical customer for an organization. Nearly every successful business has a customer profile in mind.
For example, the women’s lingerie company Victoria’s Secret clearly caters to women usually between the ages of 18-45. Thus, the company creates products for these women and craft brand and marketing messages to compel them to purchase.
On the other hand, Nike caters to millions despite their age. Their customer profile entails professional athletes and people who are regularly engaged in fitness. A customer profile usually ties in with a buyer persona.
A buyer persona is a fictional representation of a customer. You can usually find a buyer persona when looking at a TV commercial for a new car. Just check out the actors participating in the commercial.
Usually, many of them are financially well-off and live in nice houses. This is a subtle way of aligning with demographics that fit this category. When you master creating the ideal customer profile, your marketing strategy will perform on its own.
Naturally, potential customers will feel that your brand, products, or services speaks directly to them.
Why is a Customer Profile Important?
Having a customer profile isn’t optional nowadays. It’s completely necessary. Traditional and digital marketing campaigns depend on targeting a specific audience. In fact, when you’re advertising products and services on Facebook and Google, these platforms allow you to select distinct audiences based on:
- If your audience has recently purchased a home.
- If they recently graduated from college.
- If they recently got married or divorced.
These advanced demographics and behaviors can help you reach specific audiences so your advertisement can better hit home. When you set up a customer profile, you’re giving your marketing and sales team the ammunition to convert more leads.
What Does the Ideal Customer Profile Look Like?
Now that you understand what a customer profile is and why it’s important, the next step is realizing what a standard profile looks like. In sum, an ideal customer profile is specific, in-detail, and elaborate.
It must narrow down your typical customer into an archetype. When you look at your customer profile, it must be a splitting image of the types of men and women you do business with every day.
Steps to Creating an Ideal Customer Profile
Do you want to create a new customer profile or revamp an existing one? If so, you can follow these helpful steps:
- Analyze your everyday customers. How are they the same? How are they different?
- What is the unique value proposition (UVP) of your products or services. Why should your audience care about your business?
- How old is your typical customer? What is their social class? A general estimate will suffice.
Use Your New Ideal Customer Profile Today!
One of the most useful applications of your new customer profile is on your company website. If you’d like to revamp your website to align with your customer profile, click here to request a proposal.
