Profiling- it’s that word that you don’t like to use, but you should. It’s not a bad word! It’s actually an important step to figuring out who your customers are and how you can better serve them. Remember, it’s not about you; it’s about your customers.
For smaller businesses to compete with the big brands, they need to know exactly who their customers are and everything about them – okay not exactly everything, but you definitely want to get a lot of information on them. A few things you will want to uncover are the media your customers consume, messages that resonate with them, their attitudes, and their preferences.
For example, if your business is a restaurant you might want to know the age groups of your consumers, how close they live to your restaurant, their reason for coming, how often they visit, how often they eat out in general, and what would influence them to come back more often. In regards to media consumption you may want to ask:
• Favorite radio stations or radio sources
• Favorite daytime and evening TV shows
• Social media usage
• Top social media platforms
• How they prefer to get information about your restaurant
One way to collect this important information is to ask your customers to take surveys. Now you’re probably thinking how am I going to get my customers to participate in taking a 25-question survey. It may be difficult, but you can see if your customers will do it for free – but I suggest giving them an incentive. Maybe a coupon for buy one get one free, or a free appetizer on your next visit. Lets face it: nowadays most people don’t like to give out information about themselves without something in return, so invest in this research and offer your customers a reward for taking the survey and giving you valuable information.
After getting the results, you will be able to better understand your customer, market to them more on media they consume, learn how to better serve their needs, and so much more. Here at JP Marketing, we develop many surveys for our clients and the information we receive from these important studies enables us to produce successful marketing campaigns.
Many business owners don’t realize the importance of collecting customer profiles and information, but it truly does help your business excel and compete with the big brands. Come back tomorrow to read about the sixth step, investment!
