As a content creator, I know brand identity is everything. My audience wants to know what makes me different, why I create content, why they should trust the information I put out, and why I might promote a product or service.
The same is true for companies. In addition to the information above, people who find your company online want to know about your mission, vision, and how you can help them solve their problems.
The best way to convey all this and establish a solid brand identity is to do what I did with my own website — create a profile. In my case, it's a creator profile, but for you, it'd be a company profile.
Not sure what a company profile is or how to create one? Don't worry — I got you covered with a breakdown of everything you need to know about building a company profile.
A company profile introduces a business's mission, goals, vision, and history. In most cases, a profile includes an 'About Us' section that narrates how the company was founded and its whys, and a section that introduces leadership team members.
A company profile serves multiple purposes, but two of its primary goals are to connect with customers and attract investors for funding opportunities.
As you can see on my profile, company profiles go beyond a regular About page. My profile details how I started, why I create content, and my journey to finally starting the blog.
A simple About page would typically only include a brief overview of who the company is and a point of contact.
We're committed to your privacy. HubSpot uses the information you provide to us to contact you about our relevant content, products, and services. You may unsubscribe from these communications at any time. For more information, check out our Privacy Policy
Outline your company profile in one simple, shareable plan.
Loading your download form
Click this link to access this resource at any time.
Access nowYour company profile would show your company's beginnings and why you continue to serve customers. Essentially, it humanizes your brand. Additionally, a company profile:
According to my profile, my brand‘s story started with my sister’s Sailor Moon VHS tapes. Those tapes eventually led me to create content centered around anime and different “nerdy” entertainment aspects.
My brand's story is unlike any other, and the same goes for yours. No two companies have the same founding story or reason for existing.
Your history and values are integral parts of your brand positioning strategy, and a company profile is where you can mention this information without feeling like you‘re talking someone’s ear off.
A company profile is a perfect opportunity to show the work that goes on behind the scenes, thus justifying why your prices may be higher than others in your industry.
For example, luxury fashion house Prada's company profile emphasizes the company uses raw materials that are meticulously sourced and exclusively produced for the fashion house.
This creates a sense that you're paying more for higher-quality items. It also explains why I can never afford them.
My content creator profile emphasizes that I‘ve been an anime fan since childhood and shows how I developed my skills for years as a journalist. My audience knows I’m an experienced creator who also happens to be a total nerd.
My audience trusts I‘ll provide quality content rooted in my passion for the medium. It’s a reputation I hold dearly.
Think about what you want your company's reputation to be. Is your company the one that started as a small family-owned shop that grew into a billion-dollar enterprise? Or is it a company that upholds sustainability and puts ethics at the forefront of its brand?
You can build your reputation through marketing, service, and sales campaigns, but it all begins with a well-curated profile.
You didn‘t think I’d tell you what a company profile is and not tell you how to write one, did you? Have no fear, here are 11 steps to guide you on how to write your company profile.
Download the Free Company Profile Templates
No need to start from scratch. HubSpot has six free company profile templates for organizing and sharing your profile. Download these templates for free and follow the next steps in this article.
Your statement must align with what you‘re trying to accomplish. Let’s say your goal is to attract investors. In that case, you should include:
On the other hand, if you want to attract customers, it's best to add the company values to your profile.
The purpose of a company profile should act as your guide throughout the process, so take your time on it.
Have you ever clicked off a page because its format or style was too jarring or difficult to navigate? If so, you know first-hand how important the proper style and format is to a company profile.
When designing your profile, consider your audience. For example, it‘s best to stick to the traditional format for an accounting firm. That is, list the company’s achievements and awards.
On the other hand, if you're in a fashion or social media marketing firm, you should be creative and visual.
I love the homepage for Dept, a marketing technology company with an innovative and visual homepage that aligns with its offers and shows off its creativity.
Don't be afraid to experiment or go wild with your ideas as long as they resonate with your target audience.
A million other businesses sell what you‘re selling, but no one else shares your story. Your story is what makes you unique. Don’t just write numbers and dates; let your prospects know who you are.
Be vulnerable and tell them why you started your business.
For example, one of my favorite brands, Thursday, is very candid about why it started selling boots. Thursday's profile says:
“Thursday was built out of our own frustration. Clunky work boots or delicate fashion boots? Cheap shoes that fall apart after a few wears, or incredibly overpriced shoes? It didn't seem right that we had to make these trade-offs. There had to be another option.”
What inspired you? Share the bad and the good – it mustn't be glamorous. It only has to be authentic.
If you don't have a mission statement, it‘s time to craft one. Writing a mission statement for your company isn’t as scary as it sounds, and there is no need to overthink it.
When crafting a mission statement, I think about these three questions:
Let your answers guide your statement.
We're committed to your privacy. HubSpot uses the information you provide to us to contact you about our relevant content, products, and services. You may unsubscribe from these communications at any time. For more information, check out our Privacy Policy
Outline your company profile in one simple, shareable plan.
Loading your download form
Click this link to access this resource at any time.
Access nowGrowing up, I always thought history was boring — but that‘s not always the case regarding a company’s history. As I said, every company has a unique story, and detailing your rich history is a great way to stand out.
Just ensure you recount your story chronologically; otherwise, it will confuse your readers. You can do it in a paragraph or a timeline format if it shows a flow.
Another tip is to remember that less can be more. As tempting as it is to share all your milestones, stick to the major ones to avoid overwhelming the reader.
The next step is to describe what your company offers. You can choose a few of your best products or services and give an in-depth description or simply list everything your business offers.
If you have received any awards or recognition, add them to your profile and describe them. They showcase your company's values and give the community a reason to trust you.
Your customers may take everything you say with a grain of salt, but they will believe other customers who have used your products. This is an excellent way to promote your business without having your products or services come off as hard-sell.
If you‘re a B2C business, simply include some of your customer’s best quotes tied with your best value products. If you're a B2B business, have a testimonial from the most prominent client on your profile.
Hedley & Bennett, a restaurant wear company, features customer reviews and testimonials on its homepage.
While not mandatory, I strongly suggest a call to action because it can only help. It can urge people to book an appointment, make a purchase, etc.
Think about what you want the readers to do after reading the profile — visit your branch, check out your website, or call you? Simply include it at the end of your profile. This brings us to our last step.
Pro Tip: If you're using our CMS, dropping in a personalized CTA is easy.
Okay, so you bared your company‘s soul via your company profile, and readers have more enthusiasm for your business and want to work with you — now what?
Well, the next step would be to contact you, but they can’t do that if your information isn't easy to spot.
Include in your profile all the possible ways your prospects can reach you. This may include but is not limited to social media profiles, websites, phone numbers, fax, email, and physical address.
Make sure it's visible to anyone who reads your company profile.
Now that we have gone through all the necessary steps you need to create a company profile, it's time to put all that into action. Here is a simple company overview template that will help you get started.
[Company name] was founded in [Year], and we have accomplished so much over the years. To create a world where [ the solution your business solves] has always been our goal.
Our Founder and CEO [Name] was inspired to start this company by [ one or two sources of inspiration].
At [Company Name], we encourage our community to [ a positive statement about your brand].
[Photo] [Name] [Job Title]
[Photo] [Name] [Job Title]
[Photo] [Name] [Job Title]
Our goal is to provide our customers with the best [ service or product] at the best possible market price without compromising quality.
To be the most reliable [ service or product] provider and enhance [what your product or service does].
[List your company's core values]
[Insert customer's testimonials]
Location
Website URL
Social Media Pages
Cell Number
We're committed to your privacy. HubSpot uses the information you provide to us to contact you about our relevant content, products, and services. You may unsubscribe from these communications at any time. For more information, check out our Privacy Policy
Outline your company profile in one simple, shareable plan.
Loading your download form
Click this link to access this resource at any time.
Access now
Starbucks' company profile has it all — its mission, background story, products, store atmosphere, and even folklore regarding the name. Best of all, they manage to pull off sounding genuine and grandiose.
I don't know many other coffee stores that could claim that their mission is “to inspire and nurture the human spirit.”
Starbucks' company profile is a fantastic example of a store with a common household product: coffee. Starbucks managed to stand out from the competition through its mission and values.
If your company has an exciting and intellectual history, you might consider creating a profile like Wales Bonner’s.
It begins with an impactful statement:
“Wales Bonner proposes a distinct notion of cultural luxury that infuses European heritage with an Afro-Atlantic spirit. Launched by Grace Wales Bonner following her graduation from Central Saint Martins in 2014, the label is informed by broad cultural research and embraces a multiplicity of perspectives.”
After sharing the brand’s intellectual background, it describes the owner’s journey in building the company, starting from when she was a college student, as well as the accolades she has received through her ingenuity in design.
With a good balance of image and text, the timeline serves as a reminder of Wales Bonner’s stability and growth.
Look at Diehl Group Architects' company profile for both cleanliness and ease of use.
The web page uses clickable boxes to separate topics, allowing users to choose which subject to learn more about. Additionally, the entire design mirrors the company‘s purpose, including the page’s background, which displays a floor plan.
Consumers use video as an integral part of their journey with brands, so you might consider using a compelling video to convey your company’s story as Bloomberg does in its company profile.
Bloomberg‘s profile proves the company knows its audience because it offers quick statistics and links to other site areas, such as Careers and Tech. While other businesses might do well in providing a creative, long-form story, Bloomberg’s typical demographic is likely more analytical.
You can instantly understand Nike's two primary purposes — fitness, people, and inclusion.
When you land on its website, you're greeted by a bold statement: "Bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete* in the world.”
The asterisk implies, "If you have a body, you are an athlete.” As you scroll, you'll see information on its internal diversity and inclusion initiative, global community impact, and sustainable business program, with very little mention of its products.
Nike's company profile portrays a larger, grander vision, compelling an audience to believe in its brand before purchasing a product.
Seattle Cider Company‘s profile is minimal and engages viewers through compelling animations that demonstrate the company’s cider selection.
The page flows seamlessly and provides critical information regarding the product before displaying the company's mission and values.
This profile is an excellent example of a company that understands its users' concerns (in this case, quality ingredients) and addresses those issues while still displaying personality and flair.
Delta‘s page is well-organized by topic and showcases the company’s values, including efforts to engage with the community and promote sustainability.
It includes brief meta-descriptions below each category, and the design allows users to click through to learn more. Delta’s company profile is simple and uncluttered but includes all the necessary information to demonstrate its uniqueness.
Roam Loud’s company profile is a great example and inspiration for any brand with a personal story.
It’s simple yet effective, starting with a friendly greeting, “Hey there!” and ending with a list of values. In between, the founder clearly states why she created her brand and why its existence is important to her and prospective buyers.
MAD Architects‘ company profile is an excellent example of simplicity and informativeness. The profile isn’t shy about the firm’s accomplishments and lets readers dive deeper into the firm's exhibitions, lectures, awards, and publications, all visible on different tabs on the same page.
By leaning into a strong brand voice and giving details about its service, customers have the information they need to decide for themselves.
If your business is a leader in your field, consider creating one similar to MAD Architects.
Topicals is a skincare company that provides products and education to help people target and learn about flare-ups. It has a one-of-a-kind about us page that is interactive and provides a fun experience for site visitors.
When you land on the page, you immediately see multiple interactive cards, the first of which describes its mission.
Once you’re done reading about its purpose, you can learn more about the company by clicking on the other cards or simply selecting the information that is most relevant to your needs.
We're committed to your privacy. HubSpot uses the information you provide to us to contact you about our relevant content, products, and services. You may unsubscribe from these communications at any time. For more information, check out our Privacy Policy
Outline your company profile in one simple, shareable plan.
Loading your download form
Click this link to access this resource at any time.
Access nowHere are some examples of company descriptions that enhance their organizations' company profile.
On HubSpot‘s profile page, you’ll find a brief description of the company’s mission and what it does. In just a few words, HubSpot explains that the company's goal is to help businesses grow through its specialized inbound software.
On the “Why Zaneilia” page of its website, the founder of H&H Wealth briefly introduces what she believes in and encourages her customers to walk the journey with her.
She also makes a promise to her clients, setting expectations and the tone for the service she’ll deliver, helping her and her business come across as a partner rather than a vendor.
Dope Coffee aims to bridge the gap between coffee, hip hop, and culture to uplift the Black community. Its website describes the company's history and mission.
Still, a single line sticks out as a powerful and impactful description of its business to take inspiration from: “We are Dope Coffee Company, and we are changing the world one cup of coffee at a time.”
Authentique Agency provides the perfect amount of information upfront to describe what it is and its mission and values — leveraging the power of identity in brand campaigns that reflect cultural identities rather than erasing them.
I also love the use if the term "code switching," which is a term women of color like myself know too well. This shows Authentique Agency understands and relates to its audience.
It’s a great example of how to quickly and succinctly convey your message to site visitors.
The Cru is a service that connects members with like-minded women to fuel personal and professional growth. It uses an “Our Story” page as a company profile, where the founder details how she formed the organization and how she owns “Cru” (a play on the word “crew”).
This summary is a testament to the value of the service. The “letter from the founder” style also feels personal and welcoming.
Carol H. Williams, an advertising agency, doesn’t have an “about” page or a formal company description. However, it displays a snapshot of what the company is all about on its “Team” page.
It emphasizes its core values and uses trendy language (“#squadgoals”) to establish that it keeps up with the current trends.
Cafe Con Libros doesn’t have an about us page.
Still, it does have a company description that clearly explains its mission and values in two short sentences: “Cafe con Libros (coffee with books) is an Intersectional Feminist community bookstore and coffee shop.
Through our choice of books, programming, and great coffee, we endeavor to create a vibrant community space where everyone, specifically womxn-identified folx, feel centered, affirmed, and celebrated.”
Custom Collaborative helps no/low-income immigrant women build entrepreneurship skills that help them succeed in a sustainable fashion.
Its About Us page features essential need-to-know information for anyone looking to them for support, interested in donating to the cause, or simply looking to learn more about the business.
I‘m a very thorough person, so of course, I’m going to leave you with some additional company profile template ideas. Just click the link below and follow along for a breakdown of the different sections within a profile.
Download These Templates for Free
No matter the template, make sure your profile includes the following:
In this part of the company profile, you will need to include a brief introduction to your company, including where, when, and by whom the company was founded, the company‘s mission statement, and/or the company’s vision and purpose.
You don't necessarily have to include products or services in this section yet, but focus on your bigger meaning and how you stand out from competitors instead. Tell your story in a compelling way.
For instance, HubSpot starts its About Us section with, “More than ten years ago, we had a vision — an inbound world.” HubSpot doesn't mention its products until further down the page.
If you want to add your company history in a more compact way, consider adding a company timeline, like this one:
Download This Template
Here, you need to say what your company stands for on a larger scale. You can state your ultimate goal and your hopes for your products or services. Look at these inspiring company vision and mission statement examples for ideas. Here's an example:
Download This Template.
Provide a picture or brief paragraph describing your team. You can focus on leadership or explain your company's culture. Ultimately, this section should help users understand how your employees can uniquely serve them.
Download This Template
Describe a high-level overview of what your product is and how you hope it will positively impact the user's life. You can link to a Product page if necessary, so keep this section relatively general.
And there you have it — everything you need to know about putting together a company profile. If you still need a little extra help, don't forget to scroll up and click on the links to our templates.
Editor's Note: This post was originally published in January 2019 but has been updated for comprehensiveness.
Customer profiling is essential to serve your customers and meet their needs effectively.
And it's clear why: To market, sell, and offer customer support properly, you must understand buyers and get to know them.
But, what is a customer profile? How can you create one? In this post, we've compiled tips to get you started.
Continue reading or jump ahead:
A customer profile is a data-driven document that describes your current customers. Profiles are based on surveys that gather purchasing behaviors, pain points, psychographic data, and demographics. A customer profile can help you find segments of customers with commonality so you can target them in your sales and marketing campaigns.
If you don't create customer profiles, you risk marketing to a nondescript audience, leading to wasted time and closed-lost deals.
Defining your ideal customers will help you identify the attributes and purchasing behaviors of the customers whose business you've already won.
What can it actually look like? Let's take a look at a sample below.
Download the Free Customer Profile Templates
Creating a customer profile can be simple. You can create a customer profile just like this one using our free customer profile templates.
With our templates, you don't have to start from scratch. Just fill in the blanks and use the data from your service software or surveys to create a complete consumer profile.
We're committed to your privacy. HubSpot uses the information you provide to us to contact you about our relevant content, products, and services. You may unsubscribe from these communications at any time. For more information, check out our Privacy Policy
Use these free templates to build out your customer profiles for your marketing, sales, and customer service teams.
Loading your download form
Click this link to access this resource at any time.
Access now
Featured Resource
Before creating a customer profile, consider your target audience.
If your company is in the B2B space, you'll need to include more detailed information about your customers, such as industry size, regional location, etc.
If you're in the B2C space, you'll want to create a customer profile focused on the individual.
Let's take a quick look at each element of the above template.
This section of the customer profile template describes which of your services your customers rely on and how they use them. You can also include other products or services customers use with your service.
If your product can be integrated with another service and customers are successfully meshing your service with another, add that to this section. This will help you better market to other companies or individuals later.
Your customers' demographics are an essential piece of your customer profile. When writing this section, include your customer's career, industry, location, and gender identity.
Sure, not every customer will fit your demographic mold, but having a general idea of basic customer information is extremely helpful for your company's bottom line.
Understanding your customers' demographics will help you reach your goals and level up your marketing game.
Your customer profile should also include a list of benefits customers receive by using your product or service. How does your product or service provide value to your customers?
Think about how your product or service adds value for your customers and describe it in this section. The best way to answer this question is to ask your customer base. Compile and compare their answers and add a summary here.
While you're surveying your customers, use the survey as an opportunity to ask about their pain points. Ideally, your customers' pain points will be solved by your product or service.
Be sure to list pain points that you can actually solve for your customers. You'll want to focus on these pain points in your customer profile.
The best part about customer profiles is that you create them from the already existing pool of customers.
Rather than coming up with ideal, imaginary attributes like you would for a buyer persona, you would survey your current customers and find out the consumers more likely to buy from you.
While a buyer persona provides a fictionalized individual who represents your customers, a customer profile is rooted in the data and factual information of your customer base.
Everything you need to know about a group of customers is captured within this one description. For this reason, a customer profile comes first, and then you build a buyer persona from it.
Once you've defined these qualities of your target audience, you can segment your customer base into different customer profiles.
Customer profiling is the act of describing a customer or set of customers using demographics, psychographics, buying patterns, and other factors. In other words, it's identifying the characteristics of the people most likely to purchase your product or service and derive a lot of value from it.
When building a business, developing a go-to-market strategy, or giving your sales team direction, it's important to clearly describe your current customers.
That way, you know who's more likely to buy your product in the future based on who has bought it in the past.
It also helps you identify the buyer who'll purchase a product from you, which is more valuable than targeting everyone everywhere.
Trying to build something that solves 100% of the problems for 100% of the market is called "boiling the ocean." You're "boiling the ocean" when your customer profile is too broad.
The irony is that targeting a broad audience solves only a few problems for only a few people. You end up spreading your product offering too thin and diluting your value across many customers.
Customer profiles act like guard rails for product managers as they develop a new product, marketers as they craft positioning strategies, and salespeople as they search for potential customers.
Customer profiling is incredibly beneficial for all teams and your business members — let's look at the benefits in more detail below.
We're committed to your privacy. HubSpot uses the information you provide to us to contact you about our relevant content, products, and services. You may unsubscribe from these communications at any time. For more information, check out our Privacy Policy
Use these free templates to build out your customer profiles for your marketing, sales, and customer service teams.
Loading your download form
Click this link to access this resource at any time.
Access nowCreating customer profiles is critical if you want to grow your business.
Customer profiling helps you do the following.
Its benefits are impactful across your entire company, starting from your sales team all the way to your service organization. Each department in your company will use a customer profile differently.
Understanding the client is key to creating engaging advertisements or emails for potential prospects and current clients. Marketers use a customer profile to determine how to customize a message for potential prospects and existing customers.
With a customer profile in hand, your sales team will be able to highlight a customer's pain points and help better sell your product or service as the solution to their problems. Your sales team may even use the customer profile to find ways to create connections with current and future clients.
The customer profile contains all the necessary information your customer service team will need to assist clients in need. It can act as a record of queries, complaints, and previously tried solutions. This will help save time for your customer service team and keep everyone involved from becoming frustrated.
By knowing who benefits from your products the most, your organization can find better prospects and increase close rates.
If you're part of the service team, this might not mean much to you but remember: A better-fit prospect is a happier customer down the line.
A customer who doesn't benefit from your product is likelier to submit an unhappy ticket to your service desk.
Customer acquisition cost (CAC) is the amount of money you spend on marketing and sales campaigns to attract a single customer.
By knowing your customer, you can better target your campaigns and increase click-through rates and form submissions.
To summarize: The more specific your customer profile, the less you spend and the more successful your campaign will be.
Knowing your customers is key to serving them better.
By documenting their pain points, attributes, and characteristics, you can deliver a superior customer service experience before they ever request help.
You can predict issues before they arise, provide effective self-help resources, and better align with their needs if they reach out to your service team.
Customer churn happens when you lose customers over a predefined period.
By creating strong customer profiles from the start, you can attract and serve customers who actually want to use your product or service — reducing customer churn in both the short and long term.
Now that you know the benefits of customer profiling, which data should you gather for your customer profiles?
Let's take a look.
A refined customer profile can help your company build more impactful features.
It can also help you find and attract more people that are likely to buy your product, develop a stronger relationship with your customers, and put you on a better trajectory for market dominance.
For these reasons, it's a good idea to include different types of data in your customer profiles.
Here's the data you should gather for your profiling process.
Demographics are the concrete characteristics of a customer and can be used to understand consumer behavior, albeit broadly.
Demographics include the following traits (and more):
If you're in the B2B space, consider attributes such as company size, industry, and other characteristics of the organization.
Demographics alone aren't enough to understand how, when, and why people make purchasing decisions, and that's where psychographics come in.
These factors relate to the attitudes and psychological makeup of a customer and may include:
Psychographics are helpful to understanding the buying journey and even the customer journey after they've already purchased from you.
Whether it's for understanding the triggering events that lead them to purchase or crafting value-based messaging to attract prospects, psychographics are extremely useful to consider.
While psychographics relate to psychological attributes, behavioral segments look at how that's manifested in action.
You may consider segmenting by:
Segments based on behavioral traits are some of the most valuable in customer support. It can help service teams find insights about customer interaction and how these trends manifest into recurring revenue and satisfaction rates.
And once those things are measured, they can be improved.
We're committed to your privacy. HubSpot uses the information you provide to us to contact you about our relevant content, products, and services. You may unsubscribe from these communications at any time. For more information, check out our Privacy Policy
Use these free templates to build out your customer profiles for your marketing, sales, and customer service teams.
Loading your download form
Click this link to access this resource at any time.
Access nowGeographical factors are relevant when location affects how customers interact with a brand or receive their products.
Here are popular ways to segment based on geography:
Gaining insights based on geography can help your organization think through logistics, support implementation, and marketing.
Once you have this data, you can profile customers based on specific types, or "segments."
Segments help you unearth trends in satisfaction, churn, and lifetime value that help you understand more about your ideal customer profiles.
You can shorten the customer profiling process by downloading and using pre-made templates.
You won't have to come up with different sections for your customer profiles. Instead, you'll have them pre-written for you. The only thing you have to do is fill in the blanks.
We go into more detail about what you'll find in these templates later in the post. But if you can't wait (we don't blame you), download them now and follow along as we cover the rest of the steps.
Download Your Free Templates Here
Once you start creating customer profiles, you'll need several types of software.
Remember, you need to collect data from your current customer base to create effective and accurate profiles.
Let's go over the tools you'll need.
If you don't have one already, you should start using a CRM to keep track of contact data.
This software will give you all the basic information you need about your customers, such as their name, business name, location, business type, and more.
This type of basic information is foundational for customer profiling.
Hot tip: Get started with the HubSpot CRM platform for free and track contact data now.
The next most important piece of software you need is a survey tool that will help you collect additional data about your customers — data you won't necessarily have stored in your CRM.
After choosing a survey tool, you should get familiar with running questionnaires and designing questions that get you the answers you need.
Hot tip: HubSpot's customer feedback software can help you set up effective surveys, and the results will be stored right within the CRM.
While analytics software may seem like something only a marketing team needs, it's critical for your customer profiling efforts.
It will help you understand the content your prospects most respond to, and it will unearth the types of customers who are visiting certain product pages on your website.
These are just two examples of the important data points you can get from an analytics tool.
Hot tip: HubSpot's analytics software keeps all of your customer interaction and engagement data in one convenient interface. And it's connected to your CRM, too.
You've got the customer profile templates and the software you need to start account profiling.
To define your customer profile, start by examining external demographics. Then, dive deeper into needs and look at your company's offering.
Here are some external attributes you can use to define your customer profile:
After laying out the demographics, it's time to dive deeper. That's where gathering customer feedback comes in.
When building your profile, it's easy to rely on the basic demographic data you get from your CRM. But getting to know your customers is hard if you don't spend time with them.
You need to meet your customers to clearly understand what they're like. This makes customer surveys and interviews one of the best resources for building a customer profile.
Customer interviews allow your team to speak with users face-to-face. They can read their reactions to questions in real time and foster human relationships with your customers.
This helps them uncover valuable information that raw data simply can't show.
If you can't reach a specific group of customers, consider setting up a phone or video call. While it's less engaging than an in-person interaction, it's still an effective way of reaching your target audience.
If your customers are willing to schedule a call with you, you know they're loyal users and are worth the time investment. The more attention you pay to these customers, the more you'll have in the future.
As you begin examining your customer profile data, you should contextualize it using your customer journey map.
A customer journey map is a document that outlines every touchpoint a customer must pass through to achieve a goal with your company.
While these take time to complete, they paint a detailed picture of who's buying your products and interacting with your brand.
However, you don't need to complete a customer journey map to create a customer profile. Simply thinking about the customer's journey will help you understand who you're trying to reach.
By understanding their needs, challenges, and goals, you'll develop a stronger sense of what your customers want from your business. You can even take this one step further by interviewing customers about each stop on your map.
When creating HubSpot's customer journey map, we asked users how they felt about specific points in the customer experience. Then, we charted these stories on the map to see how customer perceptions changed.
This gave us a good idea of what our customers liked and didn't like about our products.
We're committed to your privacy. HubSpot uses the information you provide to us to contact you about our relevant content, products, and services. You may unsubscribe from these communications at any time. For more information, check out our Privacy Policy
Use these free templates to build out your customer profiles for your marketing, sales, and customer service teams.
Loading your download form
Click this link to access this resource at any time.
Access nowWith so much data in hand, it's easy to get lost. If you find yourself overwhelmed, bring back the focus to the problem your business is trying to solve.
Identify the type of people who face this challenge. Take a close look at your current users and their behavior.
The common denominator between these approaches is people. It doesn't matter if you only have a few customers or are well on your way to 10,000. You need to understand who your
Once you've defined the external factors that describe your customer profile, digging deeper into the contextual details is critical.
For example, if I'm running a SaaS company, I'd want to understand the following things about my customer:
Based on these external factors and contextual details, you should now have a strong grasp of your potential customers' general makeup and goals.
The final step is to look internally to see how you can help them based on all this information.
Below are some key questions to answer when completing your customer profile:
One major contextual detail you should consider is where your brand falls compared to others in the industry.
You should know how your customers perceive your brand and which companies you're competing with for their attention. This should give you a good idea of the type of customer you want to attract and retain.
Understanding your industry also helps you define your brand identity. If you're going to stand out, you need to find a way to differentiate your product and services.
But, you also don't want to advertise changes that your customers will react negatively to.
If you know which marketing strategies your customers already respond to, you can mirror your competitor's successful techniques for introducing and educating customers about a new product or feature.
Remember that you're serving people with actual personalities, feelings, and needs.
Once you've identified the attributes for your customer profile, the next step is to identify the individuals within the company that you want to reach.
This will be helpful when trying to establish a relationship with the account, as well as understand who the decision-makers and influencers are.
Here are some key things to uncover about the people in your customer profile:
If you need a tool to help you build, visualize, and share your personas, try HubSpot's Make My Persona tool.
A customer profile is a key lever for growing your business.
This definition will act as a guide when informing what products or features to build, what channels to use in a marketing campaign, and much more.
Without it, you risk offering a product or service that doesn't meet any potential customers' specific needs. Or you end up marketing to prospects in a way that doesn't resonate with their understanding of the problem.
Your goal should be to operate in step with your customer profile to inform everything from feature development all the way to go-to market strategy.
As you build your customer profile, gather the external factors, qualify the contextual details, and develop a deep understanding of how your business adds value to each customer type.
But remember: You don't have to start from scratch. You can use templates to compile your consumer profiles.
While both types of companies can benefit from customer profiles, B2B and B2C brands will need to survey different audiences.
B2C customers are looking at shoppers from a vast range of demographics. Let's consider Kellogg, for example.
Both parents and college students will add cereal to their shopping carts (albeit different brands). Customer profiles will need to segment these vast buyers.
B2C companies also need to consider geography and how people shop. In-store shoppers will be different from those who get their products online.
Meanwhile, B2B businesses need to think about two categories. Firstly, they'll need to consider the types of organizations they target.
Is the B2B offering crafted for a certain industry? A certain company size? You'll need to look at buyers at an organizational level.
Additionally, B2B businesses need to think about individuals. These teams should make customer profiles for both users and decision-makers at their target organizations.
Having an in-depth understanding of these customers can help you target marketing and sales efforts.
We're committed to your privacy. HubSpot uses the information you provide to us to contact you about our relevant content, products, and services. You may unsubscribe from these communications at any time. For more information, check out our Privacy Policy
Use these free templates to build out your customer profiles for your marketing, sales, and customer service teams.
Loading your download form
Click this link to access this resource at any time.
Access nowWe've created customer profile templates you can use to walk you through these steps. You can download them here.
Download your free templates now.
Inside this kit, you'll find:
At a loss for what your customer profile can look like?
Below, we list alternative consumer profile examples with methods that you can use to list your ideal consumer's attributes.
If you're not sure where to get started, take a look at these top customer profile examples for getting both a granular and overarching overview of your customers.
Customer profiles can vary depending on your company's needs and preferences. Some customer profiles use a scoring system to determine whether a prospect fits the business.
The above example uses the BANT framework. Using the BANT framework helps salespeople assess prospects and gives them a score for each criterion ranging from zero to two.
If the total score meets a preset benchmark, the company will reach out to this potential customer with a sales pitch.
A segmented customer profile recognizes not every prospect is the same. What one customer needs from your business may differ from the next. In a segmented customer profile, each customer type is broken down by demographics, core values, and preferred communication channels.
It includes a short summary describing how the marketing team should advertise to these individuals.
With this information readily available, your marketing team can work alongside customer service to create effective campaigns that resonate with each segment of your customer base.
Download this Template
A basic information customer profile is just that — basic. This customer profile, available in our free customer profile templates, cuts right to the point.
It lists the fundamental information we need to know about each customer type. This includes background data, demographics, and pain points.
This is a great format to use if you want to build a basic customer profile. While the information is surface-level, it's enough to give you an accurate description of your target audience.
Download a free, editable copy of this customer profile example.
To construct a buyer persona customer profile, you will need to survey your current clients to get an idea of their general buying personality.
It's important to note that the buyer persona usually comes after you have some idea of your customer profile.
Nonetheless, many buyer persona builders can get you thinking critically about your ideal customer by asking valuable qualitative questions.
Use HubSpot's Make My Persona tool as a starting point for mapping and profiling your customers.
A customer profile can be as detailed as you need it to be.
Many marketers find the more they know about their audience, the better chance they have at engaging with a prospect and making a sale.
Gathering demographics, psychographics, and behaviors in one document gives you an overview of your most profitable customers.
Write your answers in bullet points or paragraph format, and you'll be able to better understand your customers' purchasing behaviors.
By creating thorough customer profiles, you can target better customers in your sales and marketing campaigns, reducing customer churn and resulting in happier customers later down the line.
The more detailed your profile, the more value you can extract from it, making your marketing, sales, and service experiences more effective and valuable for your customers.
Editor's note: This post was originally published in December 2018 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.
The company is the world’s best Powder Supplement Oem Odm, Tablet Supplement Oem Odm, Tablet Supplement Oem Odm supplier. We are your one-stop shop for all needs. Our staff are highly-specialized and will help you find the product you need.
large screen touch display china learn more custom lcd screen lab alexandrite color change Marketing Message for Fintech Industry outdoor refrigerator manufacturer our website Check now post tensioning system services bulk supply post tension anchor our website microfiber towels manufacturers custom magic towels Wholesale visit our website View Details What are the components of a post tension system