How To Make Customer Profiles with Template and Examples

Imagine if you understood everything about your clients before they walked through the doorway? Surely selling could be a lot simpler if you knew their funding range, preferred colors, method of transportation, living circumstances, etc.

Sadly, this technology doesn’t exist. However, since a small business operator, you can use the next best thing: customer profiles. In this article we’ll explain how you can produce and use customer profiles with Pipedrive, an excellent CRM for small business who want to track and target their clients with ease. Click here to begin a free trial and follow together with

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Customer Profile Template

Our client profile template is a list of queries with instructions that will allow you to craft your customer profile(s). You may print it as a PDF and fill out your answers, or download it as a Word file to fill out it sensibly.

• • Click here to get a PDF
  • Click here to get a .DOCX Word Document

Here we will walk through the steps in more detail, therefore we highly recommend following with this template.

What’s a Client Profile?

A customer profile is a generalized description of your ideal client. It includes their demographics, likes/dislikes, preferred media stations (i.e. Facebook, email, TV), and much more. Writing profiles allows you to find services and products which are better suited to your customers and sell them more effectively.

A completed customer profile may be known as an avatar, since it is basically a full-blown character with a name, age, and physiological capabilities. Now when you’re considering a new product or advertising effort, you can ask your self, what would Becky consider this?

Client Profile Example: Urban Cake Shop

Here’s an example of what a finished set of consumer profiles seem. Urban Cake Shop is a bakery that serves three major kinds of consumers. Here you can read an abridged version of every profile:

	Morning Commuters	Seasonal Celebrators	One-time Weddings
Description	Quite frequently, spend little. Our most frequent customer stops in for a fast coffee and pastry in the morning.	Middle-aged matriarchs catering their own parties. A more compact segment, but our biggest source of earnings.	Though only a very small part of our customers, newlyweds-to-be make up 15% of our earnings.
Age Range	25 – 45	35 – 55	26 – 38
What’s most important for them?	Quick service and refreshing food/coffee	Particular seasonal treats which make parties special	Unique flavors, careful service, delivery alternative
How to market to Them?	Utilize sidewalk promotions to draw them in. Loyalty rewards and email coupons can bring them back.	Email advertising using seasonal/holiday promotions. Also, flaunt latest inventions on Instagram.	Use targeted Facebook advertisements to draw them . Continue promoting with wedding newsletter & Instagram/Pinterest articles.
Preferred stations?	Email, Loyalty App	Email, Instagram, Facebook, Direct Mail	Mail, Facebook, Pinterest

All my customer segments are exceptional — not only in their physical description and the kinds of products they purchase, but in the values that keep them coming back to my own small business.

Morning Commuters are most concerned about getting to work on time with a new cup of java. They will keep coming back to my own business as long as I am well-staffed during the morning rush, and supplying high quality coffee and fresh pastries. Coupons also work good to promote regular visits.

Seasonal Celebrators have a much stronger link to my company: custom cake/treat orders serve their family parties where they may also be a significant talking point. As such, Seasonal Celebrators rely on my business to keep their families in great spirits. Price/coupons are somewhat less effective since these customers are ready to pay a premium. Rather, they are inspired by my unique seasonal creations, which I share together on Instagram and Facebook.

One-Time Weddings come to people with huge catering requests. It’s a exceptional segment in that they seldom do not order more than once, yet still make up a huge part of our earnings. Wedding clients prioritize taste and simplicity of support over all else. The very last thing they need is an excess hassle in their wedding day, so we do our very best to relieve their anxieties with bonuses such as free deliveries and in-store tastings.

How to Make Customer Profiles

To create customer profiles, you’ll answer a series of questions which help identify and explain your best customers. Bear in mind, your profile is an generalization. It does not clarify each and every client, though it does describe a bulk.

You may create more than one profile if you notice a few different common types of customers. By way of instance, as we reveal further below, my bakery has three customer profiles: Morning Commuters, Seasonal Celebrators, and One-Time Weddings. Jump ahead to see the entire customer profile example.

Demographics vs. Psychographics

Before we dive in to creating your profile(s), we need to make a significant distinction. Client profiles need two Kinds of research:

1. Demographics — bodily traits, including age, sex, education, occupation, and income
2. Psychographics — behavior and beliefs, including personality, hobbies, personality, and comedy

These two have to be utilised in conjunction so as to make your avatar. Physical characteristics like age and sex can not tell you exactly what drives a client to your organization. Understanding their values, however, and the issues they are trying to resolve can help you answer this.

Demographics

We’ll start out by answering the demographic questions regarding your client. If you’re already in business, this should be fairly easy since all you need to do is visualize your customer. Start describing them with these terms:

• Age
• Gender
• Race/Ethnicity
• Education Level
• Occupation
• Hometown/Neighborhood
• Living Situation
• Household
• Religion
• Physical Attributes (body type, hairstyle)

If you haven’t already, I encourage you to get our customer profile template which offers these as a list of questions with explanations and examples.

While it might be OK to go with your gut on some replies, it’s always much better to back them up with information. Try spending a couple of hours monitoring the customers who buy on your store. When possible, strike up a conversation to find out about their neighborhood and loved ones.

For more information, check out our Fit Small Business guide on customer foot traffic.

Psychographics

The next step is to learn more about the psychographics, or psychological characteristics, including beliefs and interests, that specify your customer.

This step is a little trickier since you can’t just look at a client to discover these answers. You Have to strike up conversations with clients who match your profile demographically and explore the following topics:

• Hobbies
• Interests
• Favorite TV shows, songs, sites, or media
• Likes/Dislikes
• Spending customs
• Anxieties
• Political views

Although psychographics can cover a vast selection of topics, concentrate on questions that are related to your business: What are their biggest fear/anxieties when it has to do with your type of business/product? What problem are they trying to solve with your product?

Likewise, you want to research hobbies and interests to learn more about the types of products and marketing materials that could appeal to your customers. In case you have a physical store, the perfect way to find these replies is to simply head out on the ground and begin talking with clients. Should you feel uncomfortable asking personal questions, you can also organize a focus group, or send out an email questionnaire.

Actionable Insight

Remember, the reason you are making a client profile isn’t just to get a cool avatar hanging on your wall. It is so you can figure out how to sell and market better to your different customer segments. That is why I encourage drawing together all your research and writing down some real changes you may make to start boosting sales.

Now that you have a solid customer profile in mind, start Considering the following questions:

• What’s the best approach to reach this client ? TV ads, radio, paper , Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, direct mail, in-store promotions, or SMS marketing?
• What kinds of promotions will engage this client ? Discounts, giveaways, add-ons, new products, events? Also consider which types of images, fonts, messages, Facebook articles, etc. will catch their interest.
• What types of promotions aren’t likely to work?
• What measures can I take to relieve their stress ? Guarantees, warranties, exceptional customer support?
• What kinds of new products are likely to interest this customer?

It’s just as important to consider what won’t work in addition to what will operate. If your clients are normally over age 60, rule out small fonts in marketing emails or flyers. If your psychographic research suggests the customer has passionate beliefs about your product, rule out some lighthearted humor. Assembling a set of rules will make things much easier when you actually begin designing your marketing and advertising campaigns.

Pro Tip: Locate Top Profiles In Your Area

If you’re having trouble getting your customer profiles started, you may use a free online tool that shows you common customer profiles in your area.

Nielsen’s Segmentations Solutions allows you to look up any 5-digit zip code and returns a list of the most common profiles (or even”segments,” as they are known on the website.) Some instances include Movers & Shakers: Suburban dual-income couples who are highly educated between the ages of 45 and 64. Or Young Digerati: Wealthy, tech-savvy family combination who reside in fashionable apartments and condos.

The classes are fairly broad since they refer to entire households instead of individuals. Nevertheless, it’s ideal if you need some inspiration or desire a base to build off.

How to Make Customer Profiles in Pipedrive Digital CRM

If you have more than 1 kind of client, you are going to need more than 1 customer profile. Multiple client profiles enable your sales team to adjust its plans depending on the needs and interests of each type of customer.

A great customer relationship management (CRM) system enables you to set customer profiles with individual leads and prospects. Your sales team can add client profile data manually or automatically generate a client profile based on how the leads were sourced. For example, leads generated from a white paper for IT executives would be assigned another customer profile compared to prospects gathered at a conference for senior executives.

With Pipedrive CRM, you can make custom fields to store valuable data in a standardized way so your sales staff can identify which client profile applies to your prospect or customer. Have a moment to sign up for a free trial and follow along as we show you how you can make customized fields from Pipedrive.

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Let’s create a custom field for our customers known as tags. Tags permit you to form prospects, customers, and accounts according to their client profile. Just enter the tag when you save the contact. To make a custom field for our tags, first click on the widget icon next to your customer details and click on’Customize areas.’

Next, follow these steps:

1. Click on’+ Insert a new area’
2. Input the domain (let’s use’Client Label’)
3. Select’Multiple alternatives’ to your field type

This will permit you to produce a standard list of tags that will make sure consistency. Let us enter the three customer profiles from my bakery — Morning Commuter, Seasonal Celebrator, and One-Time Wedding.

1. Form each profile type to the Values field, clicking on the + to add a new value
2. Check the box with’Always visible on sidebar’
3. Check the box beside’Appears in”Add new person” dialogue.’

Your completed custom fields should look like this:

Once you’re done, click’Save’ and then’Done.’ Now you’ll see’Client Label’ listed below the contact data in the Details section. After you mouse-over’Customer Tag’ and click ‘+ Add worth,’ you will see a drop-down menu to choose which customer type to assign to that customer profile.

Let’s call me a Morning Commuter. You can assign multiple tags to a client profile, except for the sake of the manual we will only use the one. Click ‘Morning Commuter’ and then’Save.’

How to Segment Clients using Tags

Now that you have your customers tagged by type, it is possible to easily filter your main contact list to only display the type that you want to target. First, click ‘Contacts’ at the primary navigation bar at the very top and ‘People’ in the sub-navigation drop-down menu. This will show your full contact list.

To filter your contact list by client profile type, follow these steps:

1. Click the’Filter’ button (by default,’Everybody’ will be the text on the button) to show the menu
   

   Filter your contact listing

2. Click ‘+ Insert new filter’
3. Under’Show individuals that fit All These states:’ click on’+ Add condition’
4. Leave’Individual’ selected in the first field and select’Customer Tag’ in the second
5. From the new fields that arise, leave’Is’ chosen from the first field and choose’Morning Commuter’ at the next — a drop-down menu will appear when you click on the field
   

   Edit filter

6. Click ‘Save’

Now when you click the’Filter’ button, then your’Morning Commuter’ filter will appear in the list of available filters.

Choosing that filter will restrict your contact list to just those customers that you have tagged with’Morning Commuter.’ You can now see the listing, export it to a file, or export it into a third party application, such as MailChimp, which you’ve integrated with Pipedrive.

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The Bottom Line

Developing a customer profile is one of the most important actions you can take as a company proprietor. It informs countless choices you’ll make about your organization, from the merchandise that you shelve into the promotions you run, advertising emails you send, colour schemes, fonts, taglines, employee uniforms — the list continues.

The majority of us have a client profile in your mind already if we make these decisions, consciously or unconsciously. Obtaining your profile down on paper and also backing it up with research is a small step you can take to ensure that your assumptions are accurate.