Creating Customer Profiles

1. Creating Customer Profiles Consumer Profiles & Marketing Research

2. What is a target Market? • A target market is any group of consumers to whom marketers want to sell their products and services • Companies break down their most likely customer by age, gender, race, occupation, salary level, geography, interests, and any other characteristic that is common amongst these consumers • Psychographics are a person’s feelings, beliefs, tastes, opinions and personality traits

3. Consumer Profiles • The more companies know about their potential customers, the better they are able to anticipate or influence their customers’ buying decisions • Marketers create consumer profiles of the kind of people most likely to be attracted to a specific product

4. Consumer Profiles • Companies then take these consumers and create marketing groups of consumers that share similar interests and buying habits • This enables marketers to ensure that their marketing efforts are directed at the correct group of consumers, the ones that will be most interested in the product

5. Sample Customer Profile • Sporting Goods Store • Individual 23 to 52 years of age • Participates in sports • Wants good-quality sports equipment • Looks for good prices • Lives in city of ______________ • Average household income: $42 000 per year

6. Consumer Profiles • Companies divide their consumer profiles between the: • Primary Market – the most likely consumer • Secondary Market – other, occasional consumers • Although companies spend the majority of the marketing budget on the primary market, they do allocate some to the secondary market

7. Consumer Profiles • Knowledge of consumer profiles affects the following elements of a marketing plan • Distribution Methods – how to best deliver the product to the consumer • Advertising – helps advertisers create meaningful messages • Product Design – consumers in a target market tend to like the same colours, shapes, materials, and other design features • Media – helps marketers send the promotional message to the right target audience

8. Primary Data • Information collected for the very first time to fit a specific purpose • Survey: list of questions to ask your customers to find out demographic and psychographic information • Mail, phone, Internet or in person • Observation • Want to open a juice bar in the mall, you might want to see how many customers you could attract • Focus Group – interviews with small numbers of people – more discussion and interaction

9. Where does the info come from? • There are 3 types of research that businesses use to discover trends affecting their target customers • Primary research • Involves collecting the information yourself through direct contact with potential customers • Much more expensive but usually more detailed and useful • Secondary research • Involves using information that has already been collected by others • Much cheaper but not always relevant or applicable • Internal research • Involves using a businesses own records to gather information about potential customers

10. Forms of marketing research • There are a number of forms that primary marketing research can take • Survey • Questionnaire to find information • Conducted by phone, mail, online, or in person • Observation • Staying detached from the potential customer, simply watching from a distance • Experimentation / product sampling • Testing the product or service with a small number of potential customers to determine reaction