It seems obvious in a face-to-face selling situation with one of your prospects that the more you know, the more effectively you can meet their needs. The same is true in any direct marketing effort.
A customer profiling expert will always begin by studying your data to identify the very best customer segments in your existing data. Then, they will look for specific descriptive traits in each of the segments. If you’re working with a very good data marketing partner, they will have a massive data base of customer records with hundreds of selectors built in to improve targeting. These should include, but not be limited to, demographic, geographic, lifestyle, interests, and behavioral data.
An example of the power of customer profiling
Behavioral, lifestyle and interests data can be used in brilliant ways by a good data marketing partner who is very creative with customer profiling. For instance, imagine your company manufacturers blue jeans with a unique ecological slant. By isolating eco-friendly behavior with specific magazine purchases, and affiliations with “green” political parties, you can isolate those customers in a robust database who are most likely to buy these blue jeans for the right reason.
Here is just a brief sample of some of the customer profile data you’ll want your data marketing partner to offer:
- Age
- Gender
- Income
- Length of Residence
- Donates to charity
- Credit card holder
- Bank card holder
- sports
- Internet buyer
- Avid reader
- Magazine subscriber
- Mail buyer
- Political voter
- Travel
- RV owner
- Truck owner
- Government employee
- Professiona
- Retail
- Trade
- Ethnicity
- State
- City
- ZIP
- Opt in for mobile phone SMS
Ad to this the ability to know travel background, recent trips, recent purchases, and specific likes and interests and you’ve got a very powerful method to zero in on your best prospects and begin a very useful marketing conversation with them.
Customer profiling is a very powerful tool for the creative data marketing company and for clients like you.