Having a thorough understanding of customers is vital to stay competitive in the contemporary, dynamic business landscape. To have a better comprehension of their existing customer base and target market, businesses should use customer profiling as it is a pivotal tool that can facilitate the acquisition of valuable insights into their behaviours, preferences, and motivations. In this article, we will discuss the importance of customer profiling, provide the steps to carry out customer profiling, and the best practices to be considered.

Why should you profile your customers?

1.    Understand your customers' latest needs and preferences

You can derive valuable insights into your customers' wants at different lifecycle stages and factors that affect their purchase intentions.

A major Japanese real estate developer was looking into building a luxury mall in Hanoi, Vietnam and wanted to target highly affluent shoppers. Through ADA’s Consumer Profiler, we identified the demographics, density of mall visitors at different malls at specific times of day, and their residential and work locations. The developer gained a comprehensive overview of the top 10% of shoppers in Hanoi.

2.    Develop marketing strategies that yield maximised returns

You can craft effective marketing strategies that resonate well with your customers once you understand their likes and dislikes.

To appeal to the millennials that uphold environmental sustainability, sports apparel and footwear giant, Nike make the most out of its customer profiling efforts, adopt a customer-first approach and launched the “Move to Zero” initiative in 2019. It made changes to its operations, encompassing the use of 100% renewable energy, eliminating all single-use plastics and diverting waste into new products.

Being transparent about its commitment towards sustainability efforts in the said marketing campaign, Nike sets itself apart from its rivals as this has endeared itself to its target customers, influencing them to splurge on its premium lightweight shoes with waffle tread.

At ADA, we helped a major Japanese automotive company in the Philippines to understand their target market in specific points of interest (POI) – the young adults in universities and in central business districts. Through ADA’s Consumer Profiler, the manufacturer gained further insights into the online and offline preferences of the target audience. Their marketing messages were then crafted differently to better resonate with their target audience. The in-depth understanding of their core target potential customer successfully yielded a better conversion rate and lowered the cost per lead compared to the industry benchmark.

3.    Increase customer satisfaction

With an in-depth understanding of customers through customer profiling, you will be able to deliver personalised customer experiences, which is a precursor to customer satisfaction, loyalty, and retention.

This practice was one of the reasons for the aggressive growth gained by Amazon which frequently collects data on its customers' purchases, browsing history, and preferences and uses this data to create personalised product recommendations and targeted marketing campaigns. Its strategy of leveraging data from customer profiling led them to be consistently recognised for its excellent shopping experience.

How to profile your customers effectively?

To create an effective customer profile, businesses should follow these steps:

1.   Gather customer data

Collect a large array of data on your customers, including demographics, purchasing behaviour, and psychographic information. To ensure the reliability of the collected data, draw on information from multiple sources, such as CRM system, social media, and Google Analytics.

2.   Analyse the data

Use data analytics tools through Machine Learning and AI to analyse the data as well as identify patterns and trends. This can help you obtain a broad understanding of your customer's needs, preferences, and motivations.

3.   Create and use customer personas

Leverage the data you have to craft your marketing strategies. Analyse your data to create customer personas that embody the characteristics of your ideal customers. Details of a customer profile will not only cover demographics like age group, gender, and affluence level, but also include geographics like district level and psychographics such as their interests, lifestyle, and behaviours.

Once you have created your customer personas, use them as a blueprint during the development of your marketing and sales strategies. This includes the creation of personalised and targeted marketing campaigns, the development of new products and services, and customer service excellency.

4.   Continuously review and update your customer personas

Regularly check, assess and update your customer personas to ensure that they remain relevant and mirror the latest customer behaviour and preferences.

How can ADA aid in consumer profiling?

•    Footfall levels

Analysis of consumer’s footfall by time blocks of day, week, and month.

•   Demographics

Analysis of age group and gender, affluence, interests, including mobile device models and tier, and home property prices which will be used as a proxy for affluence modelling.

•   Personas

Categorisation of visitors based on our 10 personas or customised personas per client’s focus.

•   Cross-visit patterns

Observe the switching behaviour of visitors, from one brand to another.

•   Device information

Analysis of telco providers and mobile device model used by consumers.

•   Distance to Point of Interest (POI)

Analysis of distance travelled from home or work to selected location (your outlets, distributors, etc).

Launch successful campaigns with customer profiling

The benefits of customer profiling are not to be trifled with and it enables a company to achieve sustainable success. By gathering and analysing customer data, creating customer personas, and utilising these personas as a blueprint for marketing campaigns, businesses can gain a deeper understanding of their customer's demands and preferences, and create a more personalised and memorable customer experience.

At ADA, the integration between analytics, marketing, commerce, and customer experience are the key factors that define a business’ growth. Using a data-driven approach, we have helped clients of various sectors achieve their goals and won accolades such as the Campaign Asia Agency of the Year, Data Analytics Agency of the Year, The Drum, and more.

Contact us or your ADA representative to know more about how ADA’s data solutions can supercharge your business.