What is a customer profile and why does it matter to a community?

The location and operations of retail stores or centers are challenging and dynamic because retailers
are constantly attempting to meet and supply the ever-changing needs of the consumer. Often these
needs are based on changing demographics, and to be fully understood the demographics should be
modeled.

Customer profiling is one of the modeling techniques long used by retailers to better understand
their customers and how to market and serve them.

Profiling of customers or groups of customers normally includes the use of both demographics and
psychographic characteristics as well as buying habits such as frequency of purchases.

For the retailer, a customer profile provides a snapshot of the persons or businesses that it serves
and is used to set marketing programs, merchandise selection, customer service and sales processes.
Many retail customer profiles are designed to resemble a person by adding nuances to numbers and
bringing personality to data – transforming abstract data into a model that can be visualized and
connected to by the retail business.

For the community, consumer profiling is a more difficult task because the transaction data available
to the retailer does not exist for the community. Instead, communities can either conduct primary
research, such as consumer surveys or interviews, or use census demographics combined with
psychographics from a data vendor. Basic definitions for these two data sets are as follows:

Demographics are data sets related to age, gender, place of residence, race or ethnic composition of
household. The data is sourced from the Census Bureau and other secondary sources that track
consumer information.

Psychographics are segments or identifiable groups of consumers based upon buying habits,
lifestyles, income, attitudes and opinions. The data is sourced from data vendors.

A community’s consumer profiles tend to identify clusters or groups of consumers by characteristics

such as income, ethnicity or race, or age.

By profiling the core customers in a community’s retail trade area, civic leaders can better identify
and recruit retailers that cater to those distinct market segments.
For example, if one or more of the core customer segments that make up your day-time and night-
time population are heavily comprised of members of a certain ethnic group, then the
commonalities and differences within the group should be a part of the consumer profile.

To get the maximum value from your consumer profile, here are some suggestions:

Consumer profiles are not a “One and Done Deal” but should updated every two or three years as
changing conditions warrant.

The consumer profile should be included in your retail trade area analysis.

Be sure that all local retailers, restaurants and service providers get a copy of the consumer profile
report. Consumer profiles contain critical information that developers and businesses need to make
location and merchandising decisions.

Include current consumer profiles in all promotional materials and correspondence with prospective
businesses, developers and commercial real estate firms.

Customer relationship life cycle

Implementing customer relationship management (CRM) software requires understanding of

customers and their purchasing behaviours, as it will create a base to steer the planning in the right
direction. These behaviours vary within the customer life cycle and it is important to identify the
stages. Also, it is imperative to understand the needs of customers at each stage.

Let us have a look at five main stages of customer life cycle.

Reach

This is the initial stage of customer life cycle. Primarily, this stage requires performing marketing
activities to promote your brand or services. This will invite the customers or audience to know and
learn more about your product. It helps in generating more leads. Marketing activities can be
performed through various sources such as social media, banner advertising or content writing. It is
important to identify the effectiveness of each event at this stage. It also helps in adjusting the
marketing activities if required.
Acquisition

At this stage, you start receiving prospect’s information such as email address, contact number and
other details. This initiates relationship building with prospect customers and take it forward.
Engaging prospective customers with email marketing, sales calls or sending personalised messages
work well at this stage of the customer’s life cycle.

Conversion

This is the stage where your prospective customers will turn into an actual paying customer i.e. you
can start expecting revenue from them. At this point, it becomes obvious that you are able to
convince the customer that they need goods or services and are ready to give you a deal. An
important thing to focus at this stage is to make sure your customer has a pleasant and satisfied
buying experience. This also is the time to analyse the effectiveness of your marketing techniques up
to this point. It also helps in determining what strategies are working best to bring revenue.

Click here to learn how CRM can help build customer and brand loyalty!

Retention

Converting prospects into customers does not end the customer life cycle. From this stage, building
customer relationships with regular engagement helps to keep your brand fresh in their mind. This
will also help you to get repeat business or references or cross sell.

Advocacy

Having advocates for your company will help you in the long run. They not only give repeat business
to you, but also are also willing to promote your goods or services to more prospective customers.
This will be done by developing strong relationships through entire customer life cycle. They will
refer your products or services to their friends and family members.
To conclude, an all-inclusive and robust cloud based CRM software would be a great companion
throughout the customer life cycle for a business.

To conclude, an all-inclusive and robust cloud based CRM software would be a great companion
throughout the customer life cycle for a business.

To conclude, an all-inclusive and robust cloud based CRM software would be a great companion
throughout the customer life cycle for a business.

Understand your customers

Last Updated: 18 July 2018

Building positive relationships with your customers requires you to have a good understanding of
their needs and wants. By improving your understanding of your customers, including their
purchasing motivations and habits, you can personalise the customer service you provide.

Understanding your customers will help you to:

decide on the best price to set your products and services

build relationships and rapport with your customers

increase your sales and profitability

increase how much and how often your customers buy from you

decrease the costs associated with attracting new customers.

How to understand your customers

Here are some tips to help you better understand your customers, including profiling them,
analysing customer touch points, conducting market research and using your customer data to
improve your relationship with customers.

Profile your customers

Customer profiling involves building a description of your customers, or a set of customers, that
includes their characteristics, location and behaviour. By segmenting (grouping) them based on their
gender, age, where they live, where they work, their family size and how, why and what they spend
money on, you can get an idea of how your products and services may best meet their needs.
Here are some questions to consider when profiling your customers:

Where are your customers located?

What are their spending habits? What motivates them to buy?

Do they have a budget?

What is their average age, gender, occupation, interest and hobbies?

Do they work in certain industries?

Are they influenced by seasonal trends?

How to they access and use your products and services?

Have they used your products or services before?

How likely are they to refer your business to others?

Analyse customer interactions with your business

Customer interactions or ‘touch points’ are any aspect of your business that customers may
encounter or come in contact with. This may be as simple as the moment they step through the
doors of your business, to which pages they visit on your website. Customer touch points are
important as they help shape a customer’s impression and experience with your business.

When looking at customer touch points, consider tracking your customers’ experience or journey
with your business from start to finish. If you have a website, this could include analysing how
customers found your site, which websites they entered and exited from, how long they stayed on
your website and which pages they visited.

Improving these touch points can help improve your customers’ experience and perception of your
business. It may even be helpful putting yourself in their shoes and trialling being a customer of your
business to gather ideas and identify gaps for improvement.

Conduct market research

You can use market research or the data collected on your existing customers to identify trends and
patterns. These trends and patterns can help you understand what motivates customers to buy, and
the best approach to take in your marketing activities. It can also be used to help build customer
awareness of your products and services.

There are several ways you can conduct market research to understand your customers, including:
Setting up customer surveys, scorecards or feedback forms.

Conducting focus groups with customers.

Giving away free samples and ask for customer feedback.

Using mystery shoppers to anonymously buy from your business and report back to you on their
experience. Mystery shoppers should not be known to your employees, so that the feedback report
you receive is as close to the everyday customer experience as possible.

Monitoring online reviews and forums. Depending on your business, customers may have submitted
online reviews of your business on forums or other third party websites. These sites may contain
unbiased feedback to help you improve your operations.

Understanding customer behaviour in your industrbusinesses.

5 Ways to Evaluate your Business Plan

By admin

2 min read

After you create your Business Plan,in order to succeed, it is essential that you evaluate it
periodically and modify the sections that you feel are not working for your business. In this post, we
will explore 5 ways in which you can evaluate your business plan: 1. How Viable is your Plan? While
starting up your business, there may have been many assumptions you have made that do not
translate well into the functioning of your business. When evaluating your plan, look for the gap
between these assumptions and the reality of your business. Make adjustments and corrections to
ensure that your business plan is more realistic and in touch with the current and future scenarios of
your business. Create a Business Action plan based on this evaluation and ensure it works well with
your strategies for growth. 2. Involve your employees Your employees are involved in the details of
the running of your business. Share your Business plan with them and ask for their feedback. This
will allow you to gauge how the plan actually impacts the running of your business. It is key to ask
them questions such as: • Do they have suggestions to improve ways to provide better customer
service? • Do they feel the objectives laid out in the business plan align with the way they currently
do their jobs? • Do they feel that the correct target audience is being reached? • Is there any
possible target group that could also be targeted for your business? 3. Is your Target Group correct?
Before starting your business, you may have listed out your ideal consumer based on age, income,
gender and so on. After your business has been running for a period of time, you will need to look at
these demographics, check if your assumptions were right and if you can find a way to widen your
TG by enhancing your products or services. Getting a good grip on which the right TG is for your
business will enable you to make better marketing decisions as well as allocate funds in a better,
smarter way. 4. What are Current Industry Trends? When evaluating your Business Plan, it is
important to look at industry trends and ensure that you are making the best of current trends that
impact your business. It is also essential that you examine the ways in which competitors have
changed their functioning to accommodate the change in trends. This does not mean that it is
necessary to ape competitor moves but rather you look at the best way you can better your service
and deliver benefits to consumers that competitors are unable to due to their restraints in the
market. 5. Are your funds allocated properly? Every month, spend an hour with your accountant or
set up a weekly meeting in order to get a clear picture of how your resources are being spent.
Discover if there are other ways in which your resources can be optimized, how you can reach more
people by concentrating on more marketing channels or focusing on the ones that will reap you
better benefits for the time and effort spent on them. It is very important as your business grows
and expands to ensure that you are on the right track with your business plan. Make sure that you
take the time to evaluate your plan at least every quarter to make sure your business and your
business plan is on the path to success. 5 Ways to Evaluate your Business Plan

By admin

2 min read

After you create your Business Plan,in order to succeed, it is essential that you evaluate it
periodically and modify the sections that you feel are not working for your business. In this post, we
will explore 5 ways in which you can evaluate your business plan: 1. How Viable is your Plan? While
starting up your business, there may have been many assumptions you have made that do not
translate well into the functioning of your business. When evaluating your plan, look for the gap
between these assumptions and the reality of your business. Make adjustments and corrections to
ensure that your business plan is more realistic and in touch with the current and future scenarios of
your business. Create a Business Action plan based on this evaluation and ensure it works well with
your strategies for growth. 2. Involve your employees Your employees are involved in the details of
the running of your business. Share your Business plan with them and ask for their feedback. This
will allow you to gauge how the plan actually impacts the running of your business. It is key to ask
them questions such as: • Do they have suggestions to improve ways to provide better customer
service? • Do they feel the objectives laid out in the business plan align with the way they currently
do their jobs? • Do they feel that the correct target audience is being reached? • Is there any
possible target group that could also be targeted for your business? 3. Is your Target Group correct?
Before starting your business, you may have listed out your ideal consumer based on age, income,
gender and so on. After your business has been running for a period of time, you will need to look at
these demographics, check if your assumptions were right and if you can find a way to widen your
TG by enhancing your products or services. Getting a good grip on which the right TG is for your
business will enable you to make better marketing decisions as well as allocate funds in a better,
smarter way. 4. What are Current Industry Trends? When evaluating your Business Plan, it is
important to look at industry trends and ensure that you are making the best of current trends that
impact your business. It is also essential that you examine the ways in which competitors have
changed their functioning to accommodate the change in trends. This does not mean that it is
necessary to ape competitor moves but rather you look at the best way you can better your service
and deliver benefits to consumers that competitors are unable to due to their restraints in the
market. 5. Are your funds allocated properly? Every month, spend an hour with your accountant or
set up a weekly meeting in order to get a clear picture of how your resources are being spent.
Discover if there are other ways in which your resources can be optimized, how you can reach more
people by concentrating on more marketing channels or focusing on the ones that will reap you
better benefits for the time and effort spent on them. It is very important as your business grows
and expands to ensure that you are on the right track with your business plan. Make sure that you
take the time to evaluate your plan at least every quarter to make sure your business and your
business plan is on the path to success.