What is a target customer profile? 5 simple steps to define it

Building a target customer profile is an important task that any business must perform to understand the characteristics, needs and desires of customers, thereby implementing appropriate marketing strategies. So, how to effectively identify a target customer profile? Let's find out with 1C Vietnam right after this!

1. What is the target customer portrait?

A target customer profile is a detailed description of the customers that a business wants to target, including many demographic or interest factors and factors that influence the decision to buy the business's products/services. Determining a target customer profile is the process by which a business clearly identifies the profile of the customer group that is interested in the business's products/services. When correctly identifying the target customer or market segment, the business will be able to reach the right audience, using resources and finances more effectively.

For example: If you want to sell product A, you need to understand the benefits of the product and attract customers by clearly communicating the product information in the minds of customers. Connect with potential customers through meetings and conversations to better understand what they are thinking and expecting.

2. The role of analyzing target customer portraits

For a Marketer, understanding the target customer is very important for the business to determine the plan and ensure the Marketing strategy is on the right track. Below are some benefits of identifying the right customer that businesses need to remember:

2.1 Understand customer needs

Building a portrait of the target customer will help managers have an overview of the target audience that the business is aiming for. Thereby, the business will grasp the interests and expectations of customers to develop products and orient future business.

2.2 Create the right product/service

Once a business has a clear understanding of its customers' preferences and desires, it needs to make additional improvements to suit its target audience or release new product lines.

For example: According to the survey, the target customers are mainly students who are passionate about online games, so Hong Ha Stationery has launched a line of notebooks with images from the game to attract its customers.

2.3 Implement effective marketing campaigns

Analyzing target customer portraits is an important factor in marketing strategy, helping businesses understand the real needs of customers to direct efforts and marketing to those who are likely to become potential customers. Therefore, if businesses rely on customer characteristics as a basis, businesses will ensure that marketing campaigns have a much higher ROI.

2.4 Conversion rate optimization

Once businesses have a clear picture of their target customers, they will be able to convey useful messages and information to customers. In addition, meeting customers' needs will also help them quickly make decisions to buy the business's products/services.

3. Important components in target customer portrait

It can be seen that identifying the target customer profile plays an important role in developing products/services and meeting customer needs. Below are 5 important components that make up this model:

• Goals and values: These are issues related to the business's products/services. Based on this information, the business will create products/services and implement appropriate marketing campaigns.
• Information: Businesses will determine the location of target customers (online and offline), thereby choosing the best place to advertise to customers.
• Demographics: Describes the characteristics of potential customers such as age, gender, marriage, job, etc. These factors are extremely useful for businesses when writing content, emails and sales copy or choosing options on advertising platforms.
• Challenge: Help businesses develop product/service ideas and then solve problems. In addition, advertising about problems will help them act quickly and adjust their strategies accordingly.
• Obstacles: Identify the reasons why target customers do not choose your products/services, thereby solving the obstacles and making more appropriate decisions.

4. 5 steps to define target customer portrait

Identifying the target customer profile is important in the journey of identifying customer needs and achieving business efficiency. Below are the steps to identify the target customer profile that 1C Vietnam has compiled:

4.1 Step 1: Determine the goal of building customer portraits

Determining the goal of building a customer portrait helps businesses know what purpose this customer meets in the sales process, customer needs and collect appropriate data.

4.2 Step 2: Collect customer data

Businesses can rely on the following channels to collect data from potential customers:

• Through internal

Almost all employees in a business come into contact with target customers. Marketing, sales, and customer service departments are effective places to collect customer data. Each department will have its own approach corresponding to each stage in the sales process. However, when collecting information through these channels, businesses will find it difficult to come up with new ideas and lack creativity.

• Customer analytics tools

If businesses want to better understand their customers through specific data and analysis, they can consider survey tools such as: Online survey forms, Event survey on Fanpage, Google Analytics, etc. However, online surveys will encounter many shortcomings, respondents are limited to the questions suggested by the business. Sometimes consumers will only give superficial answers. Therefore, businesses need to set up a set of questions and choose the appropriate survey channel to limit this situation.

• Understand customer needs through social media

Businesses can collect customer information through websites or social networking platforms. On the website, businesses will receive notifications about customer traffic. With social networks, businesses will determine the needs and interactions of potential customers through likes, shares, and comments. This method often takes a lot of time, effort, and requires online customer research techniques. In particular, businesses must know how to filter information to avoid being manipulated by Seeders, causing market disruption.

• Face to face interview

To avoid misdirection of the advertising campaign, the business needs to approach customers who regularly use the products that the business offers. The business must directly survey to find out the reasons why they buy. This form is applied with random questions and must be analyzed to understand the needs of customers through the answers.

4.3 Step 3: Information processing

After collecting data related to target customers, businesses should classify the information (psychology, demographics, interests, etc.) and arrange them into specific groups. Normally, every product will have 2-4 ideal target customer portraits. Businesses can base on the following criteria to classify:

• Age
• Sex
• Collect
• Problem
• Customer access channels.
• Factors influencing purchasing decisions.

4.4 Step 4: Create identity and face

If the target customer has an unmet need and is a person with a definite identity. The business can give this person a short 1-2 word name and identify whether the customer is male or female. In addition, the business can choose a face similar to the image in mind of the target customer.

4.5 Step 5: Update customer profile information

The final step is to organize your target customer profiles based on criteria such as: Lifestyle, demographics, interests, and opinions about your products/services. If you have more than one customer profile, be careful to categorize them to avoid overlapping customer characteristics.

5. How to apply customer portraits to business operations

Analyzing target customer portraits is the way to help businesses develop and adjust products/services to meet the specific needs and interests of customer groups. Businesses can refer to some effective ways to apply target customer portraits below:

5.1 Identify potential customers by personality

When interacting with new potential customers, businesses should classify each person's personality to match which characteristics and which target group they belong to. From there, businesses will know the actual needs of each target customer portrait to achieve a quick conversion rate.

5.2 Using CRM to track customers

In today’s digital age, the application of customer management tools and software is essential to maintain relationships and connect with potential customers. Through this, the software will help businesses identify the stage of each customer and track their journey easily.

The CRM subsystem in the comprehensive business management solution 1C:ERP is a long-term customer relationship management system, providing fast and powerful utilities, helping businesses attract and retain potential customers. Some of the outstanding features that this system possesses can be mentioned:

• Manage and store detailed information about customers, partners and competitors.
• Notification systems help businesses track and interact with customers.
• Clearly divide customer segments, products, and business areas to facilitate reporting and business analysis.
• Store the customer interaction cycle, from initial interest to completion of mutual obligation.
• Establish and control marketing programs and events.
• Helps businesses track sales and revenue after each transaction.
• Improve customer retention rates, analyze why opportunities are missed.
• Integrated customer complaint monitoring and analysis features.

5.3 Using marketing funnels

If a business can identify its target customer profile based on their characteristics and journey, it is valid to use different marketing channels. Based on that, the business needs to create a summary table of potential customers with similar characteristics and assign them to the appropriate channel. At this point, the business can create a scientific, detailed system to build effective marketing strategies.

6. Popular types of target customer portraits

Normally, businesses will rely on target customer portraits to research and analyze each customer group effectively, from which they can plan appropriate marketing campaigns and customer care strategies. In general, each business will have a different way of dividing customer groups, but there will be the following 5 common types of target customer portraits:

• Value Hunter

This is a group of customers who are interested in items that match their criteria. Therefore, businesses should attract these customers by suggesting and advertising outstanding features. In addition, you can increase sales by giving limited coupons, exclusive promotions. From there, create a sense of urgency, promote purchases.

• Researcher

This is a customer file that wants to learn about the features and potential benefits of a product/service. Therefore, businesses need to provide products/services that match the brand's criteria, and at the same time take advantage of reviews and feedback to build customer trust.

• Brand Believer

These are customers who are loyal to your products/services. They have used your products/services regularly and are willing to recommend your business to their relatives, friends or partners. Businesses need to connect with these consumers to maintain their close relationships, loyalty and patronage. In addition, businesses must ensure that they provide engaging experiences to retain customers and keep them coming back to shop.

• The sender

These are customers who buy the company’s products for their friends and family. To reach this customer segment, businesses need to focus on the value of the product and implement advertising campaigns with content describing the product as the best gift for their needs. In addition, businesses can help the “giver” choose the product through guides, product catalogs, gift giving services, etc.

• Customers without goals

Finally, “Customers without goals" are customers who have no interest or demand for products/services. Therefore, businesses must find a way to provide the good aspects of the product, promoting the desire to buy of these customers. Besides, providing great experiences on the website is very important to create immediate satisfaction for the group of “Customers without goals".

7. Some common mistakes when building a target customer portrait

In the process of building target customers, almost every business makes many mistakes in how to deploy and create customer funnels. Below are some common mistakes that businesses need to avoid to ensure effective marketing strategies.

• Misuse of assumptions

To identify the target customer group, businesses should not develop based on assumptions and guesses. Instead, research behavior and analyze data.

• Use of demographic information

The use of demographic information is considered extremely important to build a portrait of target customers. However, businesses should not overuse this factor. The product's characteristics should be as close to the actual conditions of potential customers as possible, and must highlight the pain, desires, and needs of customers... that demographic information cannot fully indicate.

• Interviewing the wrong person

When conducting interviews to collect data on the business situation, businesses must correctly identify the participants in this process. Specifically, who are the potential customers? Who does the business want to sell its products/services to? And how much are customers willing to pay for that product/service? After answering the above questions, businesses should stick to existing target customers to outline a suitable target customer portrait.

Thus, 1C Vietnam has sent to businesses information about target customer portraits and simple steps to identify them. It can be seen that target customer portraits play an extremely important role in businesses' marketing strategies, helping to understand customer needs and find solutions to improve product/service quality based on customer feedback. In addition, for detailed advice on 1C:ERP solution with CRM subsystem to track and retain target customers, businesses please contact 1C Vietnam via hotline: 0247.108.8887