The person of the buyer, the Portrait of the client, the Character, the target audience - these synonymous expressions are used to describe an imaginary, generalized image of the ideal potential buyer.

A clear definition of the customer profile is critical to successful marketing, sales, product development and service delivery. This is one of the first tasks to be completed, since from target audience and her preferences depend on the requirements for the store. There is such a famous phrase: "You cannot hit a target that you have not set." This accurately describes how important it is to have a clear client profile.

Why do we need a client profile?

A deep understanding of a well-defined customer profile helps to:

  • Determine where they spend their time, which means understanding where the presence and activity of the business is needed.
  • Advertise more effectively. Money will be invested more wisely if you know where and for whom to advertise, and thereby ensure the maximum impact on potential customers.
  • To make promotional materials closer to the client, thanks to a better understanding of his problems, joys, desires and needs.
  • Provide goods/services over High Quality and develop them, as it will be possible to anticipate the behavior, needs and problems of customers.

Also, the client's portrait is a key step in the preparation of a marketing plan.

Creating a client profile

Obviously, it's important to have a well-defined customer profile, and the question is how to create one. Good news: Creating the image of an ideal client is not difficult if you ask the right questions.

What questions are correct? To find out, just download complete guide, which will help you create your own client profile. This guide will help you collect all the information, knowledge, experience and research results in a beautiful and presentable format.

Explore our guide to building a customer profile and start your journey to successful marketing, sales, product development and service delivery that will fully satisfy your target audience.

There can be several portraits of the ideal buyer

Sometimes one image of the client is not enough. In fact, most companies have more than one ideal customer, especially if they offer multiple products/services. The best way identify their portraits - deal with each in turn. It is recommended to start with the one that brings the most benefits to the business (logical, right?).

In the process, it may also come to the realization that one business is trying to cover too much, and it would be better to narrow down its specifics in order to occupy a certain niche, and already offer their best products / services to customers there.

Portrait of a negative client

Creating a negative persona can be just as helpful as simply creating a client image. A negative portrait is a generalized image of a person whom one would not like to have as a client.

Sometimes it becomes easier to decide which customers you want to serve if you understand which ones you don’t want to serve. Here it is recommended to present an image of the client, which would be a complete disaster for the business, and fix all those reasons that would lead to a failure in the relationship.

The main thing is to focus not on personal qualities that make this person difficult to work with, but on those things that make a certain product or service not suitable for him (for example, the price is too high, the possibility of increasing customer churn, or there are not enough conditions for in order to achieve long-term success).

What data should be in the client portrait

1. Demographic indicators. Age, gender, education, income level, Family status, occupation, religion, approximate family size. Usually these things are the easiest to determine.

2. Psychographic indicators. They are more complex and require a deeper understanding of their customers. These indicators are based on values, attitudes, interests and lifestyles. For example: the client leads healthy lifestyle lives, appreciates time with family, suffers from a lack of free time, and uses Pinterest to make things at home.

3. The name of the image will help to humanize his profile. If the target audience includes both men and women, you can choose both a male and a female name.

4. A profile face will help visualize it. On the Internet, you can find stock photos that are associated with the image.

5. Dossier creation. The dossier is a page that contains all the information about the image, including the name, data, photo and history about it.

6. Writing a story about your client profile. This story should tell about the portrait's relationship with the company and its product/service. What did he think before purchasing the product? How did he feel? Why did he feel this way? What was he looking for? How did he hope to solve his problem? What did he want to achieve? How did he find/learn about the company? How did he feel after he bought the product/used the service?

Examples of tables and templates for creating a client profile

Demographic indicators of the portrait

Portrait Interests

Business and Industry (architecture, banking, business, construction, design)
Entertainment (games, activities, movies, music, reading, TV)
Family and relationships (short-term relationships, serious relationships, marriage, fatherhood, motherhood, parenting, marriage)
Health and wellness (bodybuilding, dieting, physical exercise, meditation, healthy eating, exercise in the gym)
Food and drink ( alcoholic drinks, cooking, food, restaurants)
Hobbies and activities (art and music, gardening, pets, travel, vehicles)
Sports
Other

Portrait behavior

General information about the portrait

Ready-made example of an ideal client

Victoria is an individual entrepreneur, she is a little over 35, she has been in business for more than 1 year. Victoria works alone and manages all parts of her business.

Victoria loves working with people and loves what she does, but she sees her dream of freedom, mobility and control of her life getting further away every day. She likes to own own business, and it gives her some mobility, but she feels that her business controls and manages her, and not vice versa.

Victoria is quite successful and earns about 100,000 a month, but she has less time to do what she likes and more time to spend on the business part of the business. Victoria is already too overwhelmed with the day to day responsibilities of her business – but she wants to grow nonetheless. Her business is no longer profitable because she has to do things that she is not very good at.

Victoria sees the prospect of becoming a big entrepreneur and hiring a team of people who will do things she can't and doesn't want to do, as well as automate routine work that takes too much time.

She is ready to focus entirely on marketing. Victoria is well aware that marketing and comprehensive measures can take her business to the next level. Its goal is to increase revenue, build systems, and expand the business. Through the application of these strategies, she will be able to earn enough money to hire staff and ensure stability.

conclusions

Actually basic level, creating a portrait of an ideal client will help the business become more efficient. Combining a customer image with a marketing strategy is the best option for rapidly growing your business. Here are a few things to do when creating a client profile:

  • First of all, create a negative portrait in order to clarify which consumers do not want to deal with, and which are not suitable for this product / service.
  • Give the client profile a name, appearance, and personal history to bring it to life. You need to be as specific as possible: the more details, the better.
  • Create one portrait, and if you want to do several more.
  • Create a portrait based on market research and customer feedback, not your own opinion and impressions.

A client portrait is a series of characteristics that allow you to better understand the target audience in order to select interesting content for it. Mailing to a segmented database is 77% from ROI email marketing But, after all, users are more willing to perceive content that resonates with their needs.

According to statistics , segmented mailings demonstrate +14% open rate and +22% CTR compared to bulk ones. And if you are still doing the same mailings throughout your address book, it's time to change something. Today we will tell you how to get an idea of ​​​​the audience, and where to get information in order to send targeted campaigns to individual segments in the future.

What is a client profile?

  • Geographical position

Information about geographical location subscribers will be useful to choose the best time for mailing, send out information about great deals in the nearest stores. Use this data to create a useful, informative newsletter.

  • Floor

Men and women perceive information and behave differently, so it is worth dividing the mailing list into segments by gender.

In 2003, Joe Hellock hosted study to reveal color preferences among men and women. The study involved 232 people. The experiment showed that 57% of men prefer Blue colour. Most women have also chosen blue as their favorite. Interestingly, the second favorite color of women is purple, but for men, purple is the second most disliked color. Here are the different flavors.

Other study conducted by Anya Halbert and Yazhu Ling showed that men prefer bright colors, while women choose more calm color scheme.

The decision-making process also differs between men and women. It is important for a man to know why he needs this or that product and what problem he will solve by purchasing it. Concentrate on the product, briefly describe the important features if the target customer is male.

A woman, on the other hand, needs emotions and social proof to assess the similarity of the situation for which she is looking for a solution. Tell the woman more about the brand, about the lifestyle, what feelings this or that product will evoke in her. So you can send more relevant offers to subscribers and increaserevenues by 50% and sales by 14% .

  • Age

Users different ages respond to letters differently. Choose the right tone of voice and relevant content based on age. Concentrate on which age group will be interested in your offer. A ticket to a rock concert is unlikely to attract the attention of those over 50, and a bottle of expensive wine will not appeal to the younger generation.

The mailing design can also be changed depending on the age of the audience.Research results showed that dislike for orange and yellow grows over the years - such factors should be taken into account when choosing a color scheme for an email template.

  • Position and income level

Statistics show that segmented mailings by position and level of earnings bring+15% to annual income. Executives and mid-level employees have different income levels and will not be interested in the same content. Divide the mailing list into segments based on the positions of the subscribers. This will help create an audience-targeted newsletter. Add to this factor the level of income and include products and services in your mailings that match the price interest of users.

How to collect data

  • Questionnaires when subscribing or creating an account

When a user subscribes to a mailing list or registers on the site, offer to fill out an additional questionnaire with questions about age, location, work or preferences. Choose the information that is relevant and useful for your email campaign and focus on it.

See below the questionnaires that users fill out when signing up for a Houzz newsletter.

Or, after subscribing, send a welcome email with additional questions.

Remember that in order not to complicate the subscription process, it is worth limiting yourself to a few questions . Users will not lose much time, and you will use the information received for future segmentation.

Ask questions and when the user unsubscribes from the email newsletter. Use the information you receive to refine and improve it. Find out why a subscriber leaves you, as The Daily Sip did in the example below.

  • Polls

A survey is a powerful tool to get new information about subscribers. Due to interactivity, surveys enliven monotonous mailings and increase user engagement. As statistics show,25% of people respond to surveys . You will learn the opinion of subscribers about the newsletter and determine their preferences, and this data will help to correlate with the expectations of the audience.

In this example, Mabel's Labels is inviting subscribers to complete a survey.

  • Google Analytics

The Audience section contains data by age, gender, and location. It takes a couple of clicks to view this information.

Click the "Audience" tab in the panel on the left:

You will see data that will be useful for:

Google Analytics provides information about the browsing history of the pages on your site. Use this data to segment your email list and generate leads. By understanding which page of the site and product users view more often, it will be much easier for you to create a targeted newsletter that will cause a greater response from users.

Google Analytics automatically generates a report on the number of sessions at all stages of the sales funnel, and on abandoned carts. Gather the data, review the report, and send the customer an email reminding them of the product in their cart with a discount offer.

  • CRM, CMS systems

Subscriber data is stored in the CRM system. Integrations between existing databases and an email marketing platform will help you effectively manage the collected information about the user.

For example, a manager of a company that deals with real estate abroad knows that a client is looking for a villa on Koh Samui and speaks Russian. With the help, the company will be able to send similar offers to the user.

Integrations automatically transfer data from one system to another. This makes it much easier to create new mailing lists. Use the data collected in CRM during the period of interaction with the subscriber and, based on it, select content for mailings to selected segments of the address base. And then the mailing will become more personalized.

Alternative Methods

  • Online communities

The advantage of such communities is that users communicate online on current topics related to the company or products, and you get insights from the primary source non-stop. You will plunge into the problems and difficulties of the consumer and understand how to improve the product: make it more convenient or practical, change the design or packaging.

Sephora, a chain of perfume and beauty stores, has created a separate Beauty Talk forum where consumers communicate, ask questions, share problems and ideas for new products. On the forum, users post photos of makeup with links to products used and leave reviews. In this way, customers themselves advertise Sephora products.

  • Interview with open-ended questions

The purpose of such an interview is to understand the worldview of the consumer, determine the reactions to what is happening and figure out the logic of actions.

Set a clear goal for the conversation and steer the respondent in the right direction. Don't pre-write questions and be prepared to improvise. Such an interview will work only in the form of a sincere, lively dialogue, conducive to truthful and detailed answers.

The information received can change your vision of the product, lead to new ideas for its development and a change in marketing strategy. Take Procter & Gamble as an example.

In the mid-90s, the company spent millions to develop Febreze, an anti-odor home remedy. However, the new invention was not in demand, because the housewives were accustomed to the smells in their homes and they did not need a remedy for an unpleasant smell at all. Then Procter & Gamble conducted interviews with customers to find out how, when and for what the product was used.

Among those interviewed was a housewife who shared that a freshener for her is a nice finishing touch to her daily cleaning routine. It was these words that made the company rethink its advertising strategy and position Febreze not as a lifesaver from unpleasant odors in the house, but as an air freshener. Two months after the change in strategy, air freshener sales have doubled.

Remember, email marketing isn't just about sending updates to subscribers. Explore subscriber data, create a portrait of the audience, segment mailing lists and relationships will be strengthened, and metrics email newsletters will improve.

One of the mistakes that affects the final result is selling to everyone. It can cost you not only low revenue, but also total absence. You must have a portrait of your ideal buyer.

You need to understand who you are selling to. Who buys from you more and more often. This forms the basis of your . And then you should build actions to attract just such buyers.

It depends on what kind of traffic to send, what methods to communicate with customers, where to send warm leads. This is directly related to the sale.

How to check that you are working with a non-target audience:

  • Many meetings are held, but there are no results;
  • A business is not built on experience from another business;
  • No client qualification process;
  • There is no specific target portrait of the buyer.

How to define your target audience:

Implement a client qualification process;

Supervise the qualification process;

Insert qualification step into ;

Make additional fields according to the portrait of the target audience in;

Prohibit the transition from stage to stage in CRM without filling in additional fields.

It often happens that managers work with an insolvent audience. Or the company directs all its efforts to attract buyers who very rarely make small orders. Instead of focusing budget and effort on the target portrait.

Client portrait: ABCXYZ analysis

In order to determine the portrait of your ideal buyer, you need to do an ABCXYZ analysis of your customer base. Determine who pays often and a lot.

ABC is a check, margin

XYZ is the frequency of transactions, the regularity of purchases

For analysis, it is better to take data for 2-3 years.

What questions does this study answer?

  • How much does the client pay?
  • How often do they buy?
  • Who do you need?
  • Who don't you need?
  • What other criteria are important to check?
  • What is the profitability for each buyer?
  • What indicators need to be calculated?
  • Minimum cost-effective purchase amount?
  • Minimum margin?

If you have one-time purchases (for example, once every 5 years or every 10 years), then you can only do an ABC analysis. Those. conduct a study on the average check. Unload the best buyers from the CRM system and analyze the largest average checks - who makes these orders.

Based on this, it is necessary to draw up a portrait of the target buyer and work mainly with this segment only.

If you have contractors (for example, you cooperate with designers, foremen), then you need to conduct a full ABCXYZ analysis and determine which of them are most interesting to work with.

Where to get data for analysis:

  • Information from your CRM system
  • Bank statements
  • Loyalty cards (for retail). If in retail there is no binding of revenue to specific people (there are no loyalty cards), this should be implemented.

Client portrait: RFM analysis

Another useful tool that helps to describe the client's portrait is RFM analysis. It breaks down the current customer base according to 3 criteria: Recency, Frequency, Monetary - age, frequency, money.

Without a clear portrait of a potential client, it is impossible to competently compile a commercial offer for the sale of a product or service, and it is even more difficult to correctly address it. The portrait of a potential buyer is the target audience who is most likely to be interested in your offer. It is compiled using maximum number information about consumer demand for the product.

Separation of business segments

It is worth starting the topic with the fact that there are two lines of business - b2b and b2c. The first option is business-to-business, and the second is for buyers. In the first case, as a rule, the question of drawing up a portrait of the target audience is not worth it, since the audience is known to everyone, it remains only to concentrate efforts on attracting customers. But the second case is what will be discussed further. For b2c, it is always important to correctly define the audience, regardless of whether it is a business online or offline.

In addition, it is important to know that the target audience for a particular activity may not be one. Experienced specialists always single out a main group and several secondary ones for work.

Elements of a portrait of a potential client

Before proceeding to the instructions for drawing up a portrait of the consumer, it is necessary to understand the intricacies of the concept itself. A portrait of a potential client is a complex collective image of a person who is interested in your offer. When creating this image, you visually "draw" in the head of the target buyer, to whom all marketing activities of your organization will be oriented. The portrait of the target audience can have a huge number of different characteristics, because the more of them, the more truthful the image will turn out.

Basic positions for describing the target audience

Any marketer who is faced with the task of describing the target audience for the first time asks himself a few questions:

  1. How to determine who is the target audience of the organization?
  2. In what period of strategy development should target audience be chosen?
  3. Where to get data for compiling a social portrait of the consumer?
  4. What are the characteristics for creating a buyer persona?
  5. How detailed should the description be?

Of course, these are not all questions, but certainly the most basic ones. Next, we will analyze each of the points in more detail. So let's get started.

The target audience

It can be wide - for example, all consumers of milk products, or narrow (only those who buy fat-free cottage cheese at a low cost). The wider this circle, the more fuzzy the description will be, since in this case it is difficult to determine the pronounced characteristics of the audience.

Create a portrait target consumer necessary according to the prototype of the brightest representatives, trying to outline the general character traits, which will distinguish your company's customers from the rest of the market audience. When forming the image of your buyer, it is necessary to describe not only regular consumers, but also those who have not yet purchased the goods.

At what stage of the strategy should target audience be chosen?

Starting to draw up a portrait of the consumer should be after the analysis and segmentation of the market, that is, at the stage of developing a positioning strategy. In practice, situations often occur when it is necessary to identify the target audience without a marketing strategy, this is especially true for specialists who are just starting to work in new organization. In this case, you can do the following:

  1. Identify the main competitors of the company.
  2. Do comparative analysis your company's product and what your competitors offer.
  3. Send a mystery shopper to a competitor.
  4. Describe the value of the product.
  5. Understand who is this moment is a consumer of the product and is loyal to it.
  6. Describe your ideal buyer.
  7. Create an image of the target client based on the data received.

Where to get information

In order to form an image of a potential consumer, it is necessary to answer some questions:

  1. Who buys the product and who doesn't?
  2. Why is it bought or not bought?
  3. By what criteria are they chosen, how are they bought and applied?
  4. How do consumers feel about other products of the organization?
  5. Application experience.

The following sources will help you find answers to all these questions:

All the characteristics on the basis of which the image of the buyer is formed can be divided into several groups.

Geography

Here you will need to set the geographic area where the advertising message will be broadcast. Here it is necessary to determine in which part of the country / region / region potential customers live and are located. It makes no sense to advertise throughout the country when your product or service is only available in major cities, for example, Moscow and St. Petersburg.

Socio-demographic indicator

It can be divided into three components:

  1. Gender of the client. Representatives of the female and male are guided by different principles, respectively, and they make different decisions. Therefore, in order to draw up a portrait of a consumer in marketing, it is necessary first of all to determine for whom the product is intended. Quite often it happens that it suits both, respectively, the target audience is men and women.
  2. The age of the buyers. This is a rather extensive block, since each promotional offer has its own age category. It is impossible to give an unequivocal answer to this question, it will be necessary to establish some kind of framework, for example, the age of the consumer is young people from 25 to 35 years old. Marketing specialists have long divided human life into several stages (school time, students, the beginning of a career path, career flourishing and its growth, career ending, retirement). It is these stages that should be guided by when compiling a portrait of the target audience, since each service or product has its own age category, to which they will be sold better.
  3. Education. This criterion helps to understand how the buyer is developed in professionally. A lot of targeted advertising campaigns make their division according to it, it can be split into those who have one or more educations and an average income level. Most often, this example of a consumer portrait is used by organizations that offer goods and services for wealthy people.

Financial situation

One of the most important criteria when thinking through the image of the buyer is to determine the income level of your target buyers. Here it is important to understand what kind of check you are counting on, and what principles customers are guided by.

If potential buyers goods low income, it is not advisable to set a high cost for the goods. And also it is worth understanding that people with low incomes pay great attention to the price, more precisely, it is the cost that is the key point for them when choosing an offer.

Information channels

This is one of the most important questions in the formation of a portrait of a potential consumer. Here you need to establish from what specific sources your future customers receive information and answers to their questions. These can be completely different distribution channels:

  1. Search engines on the Internet.
  2. Social media.
  3. Newspapers.
  4. Magazines and more.

If you are going to engage in attracting customers to a store on an online resource, then you should pay attention to specialized sites where people with the same intentions gather and discuss issues that concern them. These same sites can later be used for your advertising campaigns.

How detailed is it necessary to describe the target audience

When forming the image of a potential buyer, it is necessary to describe the bright representative. In the process, try to use all the groups of parameters mentioned above. Only in this case the description will be truly portrait. After studying this information, a distinct image should form in a person’s head. Ideally, a collage of several photographs should be added to the description to complement the portrait. It is better to prepare two options: a short one, based on 4-5 criteria, allowing you to superficially separate the target audience from the entire market, and a complete one with the maximum detailed specifications, his habits, features, character and so on.

The picture will be complete and detailed if, during the creation process, you try to describe the development vector of the target audience in the existing format and in the way it should be perfect. Such a description will help to understand the key changes that need to be made in the development and promotion of the product.

Step-by-step instructions for drawing up the image of a potential buyer

Having found the answers to all the above questions and armed with the necessary amount of information, you can begin to build a portrait of a potential client step by step. This plan is suitable even for those who do not yet have an established client base. In this case, the analysis can use the data of acquaintances who are most likely to be interested in your offer. And already when you have the first real buyers (at the first stage it is enough to analyze the first 10 people), you will need to repeat the procedure. So let's get started:

  1. Profile review in social network. From such popular resources as Vkontakte or Facebook it is very easy to get some information - gender, age and place of residence of a potential client. This is very necessary data that should be entered on a computer in a special plate.
  2. Analysis of pages and groups in which clients are members and subscribers. This information should also be entered in the previously created table. Why is this required? After the portrait is drawn up, the pages and groups in social networks can be used as information platforms. This means advertising your product on saved pages.
  3. Three of my favorite sites. Having information about which resources customers most often use, you will be able to place your offer on them in the same way. It always works very effectively.
  4. Field of activity. This point can also most often be found out from the questionnaire, and the availability of such information allows you to understand the capabilities and needs of the consumer.
  5. A record of questions and problems that the client encounters. This will help “tie” your proposal to their decision.
  6. Making a portrait of the client based on the information received. All data are summarized in a separate questionnaire-table for each client. As a result, you will have a ready-made image of a potential buyer in your hands.

Working examples of a consumer portrait

This is how well-composed images of target audience look like:

  1. An audience for a family psychologist in private practice. An example of a consumer portrait in this case looks like this:
  • Female people aged 22 to 44 from major cities.
  • Are interested in psychology and follow the news of groups in social networks on related topics.
  • They have at least 3 interests.
  • They are actively involved in sports.
  • They are fond of philosophy, spiritual values ​​and personal growth.
  • High or medium income.

2. An example of a consumer portrait for an online youth clothing store from designers.

  • Female and male people aged 20 to 35 from metropolitan areas and medium-sized cities.
  • Interested in fashion and its trends.
  • All have stable employment or study at higher educational institutions, with active life beliefs.
  • They are fond of several sports, participate in competitions, are members of the relevant groups on social networks.

In contact with

Classmates

From this article you will learn:

  • What are the components of the consumer portrait
  • Is there a common consumer profile for all services?
  • How to increase sales in business with the help of a consumer portrait

Using in professional speech such a concept as " consumer portrait”, marketers mean the target audience for which the company’s product or service is designed. For the painter when creating a portrait important condition is inspiration, and the seller needs to know the basics of marketing and as much data as possible about the likely demand of buyers for their product. Until a detailed portrait of the consumer of services and goods is written, including many details, it will be extremely difficult to draw up an effective commercial proposal aimed at a specific group of customers. Therefore, about stability high sales one can only dream. Therefore, the skill of drafting consumer portrait is mandatory for every leader.

Why you need to create a consumer profile

Client portrait is a collective image of a potential buyer, based on some mandatory components:

  • the age of the consumer;
  • his marital status;
  • income level;
  • place of residence (geography);
  • the scope of consumer employment;
  • position level;
  • typical problems associated with the specifics of the work;
  • needs, fears and desires.

How more features involved in drawing up a portrait of the consumer, the closer it is to the truth, therefore, the definition of the target audience will be the most accurate. In order not to inadvertently make it too narrow, marketers recommend using not one, but at least three customer portraits. This approach allows you to address exactly that group of buyers for whom, when creating a commercial offer, a language and methods of argumentation that it understands were used. Point orientation, which is possible only in the case of creating a portrait of a potential consumer, will save you from huge spending on unproductive advertising designed for the masses. Learn how to get your marketing department to bring more customers in the course

For example, a marketing team is developing a conversion promotion for a company that sells baby knitwear. In the course of the work, they will have to draw a portrait of the target consumer and answer the question: “Will this action attract Masha, who is expecting a baby, so that she wants to purchase a complete set for newborns?”. At first, the options may be different, but the goal of the developers is to achieve ideal conditions so that the answer sounds: “Of course, because it’s already hard for Masha to go to different stores in search of the most suitable things in terms of price and quality, and we have a lower price than many, and special underwear for nursing as a gift.”

When the study of the desires and capabilities of the buyer takes place at such a level of immersion in his problems, this will inevitably lead to an increase in consumer demand for the company's products.

At what stages does a marketing portrait of a consumer help?

  • Creation and positioning of the product.

Why do people need this product, what will they pay special attention to? To get the most accurate psychological portrait of the consumer, the answer to this question is extremely important. If you produce construction sets for kids, pay attention to their safety and the possibility of the child's all-round development. Do you sell a variety of cooking utensils? Focus on ease of use and ease of getting results. Initially target your product to a specific group of consumers.

  • Communication in the language of the audience.

A well-designed consumer portrait will help you choose the right means of communication with potential buyers of your goods and services. What words should prevail in a sentence to study in personal growth courses? Success, change for the better, new perspectives. The purpose of the message is to interest and attract.

Sellers of baby diapers use a completely different vocabulary. In this case, the target audience is parents who value ease of use and the absence of harmful consequences for the child.

  • Targeting.

Targeting is advertising settings that allow it to go straight to a potential consumer, whose portrait was compiled as a result of preliminary work. A young man, after watching a video with tricks on a hoverboard, receives a link to an online store selling this device. Asking a question on the forum about the causes of back pain, a woman immediately sees an advertisement for an anesthetic ointment.

Settings allow you to specify the location, time of demonstration, gender and age characteristics. Often, marketers use generalized targeting. By creating an accurate portrait of your target consumer, you have the opportunity to make adjustments that will return your investment in a much greater amount.

  • segmentation and personalization.

Customer needs vary greatly. Depending on the segmentation results, you can directly address a specific group by creating a generalized portrait of it - men or women, young people or the elderly, who wear big sizes clothes or small.

Segmentation allows you to formulate an offer that will best meet the needs of the consumer group to which it is intended.

  • Customer retention.

Indicators such as gender and age are the most obvious parameters for creating a consumer portrait. The next level of studying the target audience is understanding at what stage life cycle there is a buyer: at the moment of making a decision to purchase, readiness to repeat it or the stage of alienation.

Having this information, having an idea about the portrait of a potential consumer, you can remind of your existence when his readiness to make a purchase is at the highest level. Make a discount offer to the client when he has almost forgotten about your existence.

What kind of consumer profile do you need to create

Any buyer can be attributed to one of four categories. Each involves the use various methods when referring to her. Unfortunately, only a small part of managers and executives understands the importance of drawing up a portrait of the consumer and an individual approach to buyers of various target groups. But it is precisely in it that the key to the success of many types of activities, the object of which is the end consumer of the goods, lies.

Very often one has to observe how a novice entrepreneur or a small enterprise, having a good potential, fails at the initial stage of development due to the inability to turn their potential customers into real ones, as they do not imagine the portrait of the target consumer. Learn how to find and “grow” an ideal client using budgetary methods at the course

An important point at this stage is the realization of the fact that initially different people are motivated to buy by diametrically opposed factors. Let's start with the fact that four categories fall under the name "modern consumer":

  • Potential buyer.

The largest group, according to by and large including every person capable of acquiring something. Being under constant "shelling" of commercials, images, slogans, any of us is always ready to make a purchase. But at the same time, the seller is interested in his target consumer, who often spends a lot of money and effort to define his portrait.

The potential buyer is a certain Mr. X, whose identity is not an easy task to declassify, but at the same time quite solvable. Indeed, the level of profitability of his enterprise directly depends on how accurately the seller creates a portrait of the consumer.

  • Visitor.

This category is distinguished by its skepticism. It is not difficult to imagine her portrait: these are people who from time to time purchase a product or service in a certain place, but at the same time are not among the regular customers. But if you try, they can become them.

Important to remember, that the chance to make a decisive impression is given only once. Having crossed the threshold of a new store or salon for the first time, a potential consumer already forms his opinion about this place in a few seconds. If at this moment he was not approached with a friendly smile and an interesting offer, he can become a visitor, but he is unlikely to be transferred to the category of regular customers: the first impression decides too much.

  • One time buyer.

When compiling a portrait of a consumer, it is important to understand what drives people when they buy some things or services. First of all we are talking about meeting needs. The second motive is to have fun. If the seller contributes to the achievement of one of these goals, the transaction can be considered completed, and the store - received a one-time buyer.

Everyone who has made a purchase or received a service that he liked, of course, will not forget this place. The seller is faced with the task of creating for a one-time buyer such conditions for which he would want to come back to this store. And for this, it is necessary to clearly present the portrait of the target consumer.

  • Regular customer.

The basis of a stable income of any firm or outlet it is precisely regular customers - consumers who, without a doubt, return to the same place again and again. The goal of the seller is not to lose any of the loyal customers and by all means strive to increase their number.

Where does the consumer profile begin?

Creation of social psychological portrait of the consumer implies knowledge of the answers to the following questions:

  • place of residence (city or village, house or apartment);
  • his age;
  • what kind of education did he receive;
  • he is married or single;
  • what is the consumer's occupation employee, entrepreneur, business owner, temporarily unemployed, pensioner, student);
  • what interests him (hobbies);
  • what problems does he care about;
  • can your product help him in solving them;
  • how much per month he spends on average on purchases;
  • what is the decisive factor in making a purchase decision (price, quality, brand, advertising, recommendations from friends);
  • how well the consumer is familiar with your product (expert, amateur, casual passer-by);
  • how much you are willing to spend to buy your product;
  • what scares him in connection with the purchase of your product.

When compiling a portrait of a potential consumer, it is important to take into account in a complex both socio-demographic parameters (gender, age, geography of residence, marital status), and behavioral characteristics(what motivates him to buy, how he makes decisions).

Having in your hands a socio-psychological portrait of the consumer, proceed to the preparation of a commercial offer designed for a specific group of buyers, as well as to determine the places of their “habitat”. By clearly presenting the image of the client, it is much easier to find a common language with him, contact new consumers, retain and motivate regular customers to return.

For commercial offers various types when compiling a portrait of a consumer, other indicators may also be required: from living in a family of pets to the religion practiced.

For example, the owner of a pet store chain, having information about the number of city residents who own dogs or small rodents, can more accurately adjust the product matrix, contributing to an increase in turnover and profit growth.

Travel agency managers, in an effort to sell as many tours as possible, should, when drawing up a portrait of the consumer, familiarize themselves in detail with the reasons that encourage their customers to choose certain destinations for travel.

Holiday planners will have more freedom in choosing the forms for the planned event if they have access to information about the amount of funds that customers expect to spend, as well as the source of their income. In this case, the scenario will be created taking into account these nuances.

How to create a consumer profile: step by step instructions

Step 1. We analyze client profiles in social networks and write out their age, gender and geography.

Starting to draw up a portrait of the consumer, use the information that is in the public domain - the profiles of buyers in social networks. Choose ten best clients from your database and search for them online using their first name, last name or address Email.

Ten in this case is the optimal number for getting an idea about your target group and creating a social portrait of the consumer.

What to do if the company has just opened and the client base is still empty?

Use a little trick: think about who from your personal environment is a potential consumer, and build a portrait based on their profiles. Having got real clients, you can make adjustments to it.

As a rule, a personal profile contains information about the age and place of residence, which are very important when working on a consumer portrait. Save this data in a separate file.

Step 2. We write out the target groups in which the clients are, and the landing pages to which they are subscribed.

The next information that is of interest for building a consumer portrait is which groups he is a member of and what updates he subscribes to. By choosing community names that intersect with your products, you can reach your buyer directly by placing ads on the pages they regularly view.

Step 3. Ask potential consumers for the names of the three sites they spend the most time on.

Let's move on to the next stage of creating a socio-psychological portrait of the consumer - we find out the resources on the Web on which your customers spend a lot of time.

The purpose of obtaining this data is the same as in step #2 - to limit the placement of advertising materials to the exact sites where your customers are most likely to see it.

Step 4. We write out the field of activity, position and place of work.

No less important information that can be indicated in the client profile, which is necessary when compiling a consumer portrait, is the field of activity, place of work or service, position held.

Step 5. We write down the most frequent questions / problems that he faces.

Scroll through the posts on your client's page to find out what problems they are interested in, what they pay attention to more often, what posts they publish. This will help to form a psychological portrait of the consumer.

Step 6. We draw up a generalized portrait of the client based on the data received.

As a result, as a result of the analysis of all the collected data, you will create a portrait of the modern consumer.

It should include indicators such as gender, age, field of activity, as well as the names of the three thematic sites that he most often visits.

Based on this information, as well as having information about the life problems that concern the client, it is quite possible to get a fairly complete picture of the portrait of the target consumer of your products.

Having this knowledge will simplify many of your business processes, because you will accurately understand what motivates your customer to make a purchase, what type of advertising to use and where to place it, so that your actions will surely lead to the desired result.

Consumer portrait: what it looks like in an example

  • Audience for a private family psychologist.

The portrait of a consumer of the services of specialists in the field of psychology looks like this: “Women from 23 to 45 years old, residents of large cities, who are fond of practical psychology who are in similar groups in social networks, have more than three interests, regularly go in for sports, are interested in self-development, personal growth, philosophy, have an average or high level of income.

  • Audience for an online store of designer youth clothing.

The portrait of the target consumer of online trade in items from the fashion collections of famous couturiers can be characterized in a completely different way: “Women and men from 19 to 35 years old, living in medium and large cities, actively interested in fashion and its individual areas, having stable income; university students and others educational institutions, holders of an active life position, who are fond of one or more sports and take part in various competitions, are subscribers of the relevant youth groups in social networks.

  • Audience for a company selling repair and construction services in the B2C market.

An example of a portrait of a consumer of services in the field of construction and interior design will be considered in more detail:

  1. Age from 30 to 50 years. Typical customers repair work in houses and apartments are in this age range. Of course, there are both younger and more mature customers, but their number is insignificant and does not affect the drawing up of a consumer portrait.
  2. Floor. Men - 60%, women - 40%. Taking into account these data, it is possible to formulate advertising messages based on gender gradation: to address the male audience of consumers with ads containing more concrete facts and exact numbers, women - more images designed for positive emotions.
  3. Social status. As a rule, this middle class and above: such services are ordered by consumers who have the opportunity to pay for them and are too busy to do repairs themselves.
  4. Financial situation. Average level income of potential customers - from one thousand dollars per family and above. Consumers with lower incomes can be interested in a special offer based on attracting credit funds from partner banks or installment payments for repairs made.
  5. Family status. 70% of married couples, 30% are bachelors or single women.
  6. Education. Higher, secondary special - 90%.
  7. Geography of residence. City - 95%. When drawing up a portrait of the consumer, it is desirable to determine the geographic scope as accurately as possible, up to the city districts. This will make it possible to make a targeted commercial offer to new settlers or residents of long-settled microdistricts.
  8. Client problems. The consumer is faced with the task of finding a quality performer of work. His need is to get a well-renovated housing at affordable prices in a short time.
  9. client fears. The work will be done by workers who do not have a sufficient level of qualification, labor migrants, while the probability of getting a decent quality is close to zero. Building materials can become the object of theft on their part. The repair process will stretch for an unpredictable time.

Portrait of a service consumer from audience for a new tour operator, which plans to sell reservations to premium hotels, offer charter of yachts, small aircraft, transfers in VIP cars, something like this:

  • Age. Adults held, mature people. Adult children of large businessmen, politicians.
  • The gender of the consumer does not matter.
  • Social status. lonely couples, families with children.
  • income level. Much above average.
  • Geography. Residents of capitals, large cities, elite suburban settlements.
  • professional industry. Oil and gas industry, banks, politics.
  • Call frequency. At least 5 times a year.
  • Trademark use. 1-3 expensive brands, preference for one.
  • decision triggers. Expensive website design, convincing offer, loyal pricing policy.

From what sources to take data, making up a portrait of the consumer

The image of the average buyer is drawn based on data about existing customers. Let's highlight some of the most useful sources for creating a socio-demographic portrait of the consumer.

  • Google Analytics.

"Google Analytics" provides an opportunity to obtain information about the gender and age characteristics of site visitors, as well as about the most active buyers. These data are necessary when drawing up a portrait of the consumer.

Once logged into your Google Analytics account, open the Reports tab. Choose Audience → Demographics → Age. You will have access to a report on site visits by users of different age categories, as well as information on who makes the most conversions. If you want to receive statistics on sales, you need to set up the ecommerce module or goals.

At the same time, it is worth paying attention to the percentage of conversion and the effectiveness of the visit, based on indicators of age and gender. For example, the most active resource is visited by young men from 25 to 35 years old, and in terms of activity on the site, women from 24 to 65 years old show themselves better. Therefore, the portrait of the consumer will include this particular category.

When building a report, set the time span from six months to a year.

Here, in the "Audience" report, it is possible to get acquainted with the geography, distribution by devices used and preferred browsers (this is useful when organizing teaser and mobile advertising, as well as for promoting on Vkontakte). For drawing up a portrait of the consumer, this information is of undoubted interest. If we are talking about the Western market, even language information is needed (the client can use one of several state languages recognized in the country).

There is a subsection "Interests" in the reports. Here you can get acquainted with the segmentation of consumers according to the prevailing interests and find out the number of people in the group, as well as their behavior and average income. This is useful for creating a consumer portrait and subsequent advertising in AdWords.

.

  • "Yandex.Metrika".

In Yandex.Metrica, user reports are also available for viewing, which will be useful when compiling a consumer portrait. For example, it is possible to find out the conversion depending on the size of the city. To do this, you need to log into your Yandex.Metrica account. Click "Reports" → "Standard Reports" → "Visitors" → "Geography".

A report is issued on the geography of users: visits, refusals, viewing depth. Above the table, select "Group".

In the window that appears, select the criterion for segmenting consumers. Find City Size and click Apply.

Then we determine the metrics - the characteristics of the group.

In the metrics window, select one of the goals. Click "Apply" and we can study the report.

  • MailChimp.

The MailChimp interface allows you to get useful information for compiling a portrait of the consumer - for example, information about reading letters on various devices of users. To do this, go to the "Lists" tab, select a list of subscribers, then click "Stats" → "Overview".

As a result, we have the following information:

In addition to information on all users, statistics are available for each of them: how many letters were sent to this address, how many of them are open, how active the user was in relation to each letter. This data will not only help to create a portrait of the consumer, but also to study the life cycle.

Using "Wavelength", it's easy to get to know the interests of your customers - to get information about what other mailings they receive. Enter "Wavelength" and click "Connect Your List".

You will need to enter the login and password from the MailChimp account.

We study the list of mailing lists that are popular among our customers and better represent their interests. This contributes to the creation of a more accurate psychological portrait of the consumer and allows you to find intersection points for affiliate cross-promotions.

IN developed countries this tool has long been tested and put into daily practice: one specialist oversees at least ten agreements at the same time, and each mailing is a source of solid income.

This Facebook tool, which allows you to identify the characteristics of the audience and conduct a comparative analysis with the average indicators of social network users, can provide invaluable assistance in compiling a consumer portrait. It is available to anyone with a business Facebook account.

In the business account "Facebook" click "Business Manager" and select "Audience".

"Create Audience" → "Custom Audience".

In the new window, select "List of clients".

You then need to sign in to MailChimp using your Facebook business account.

We stop at the list of mailing recipients of interest to us, form an audience.

In the event that the list is quite large, you can simply select a part of the buyers in MailChimp. This will make it possible to find out who is in the database (to whom you addressed your advertising) and who of them is really a consumer (to whom marketing actions should be targeted). If there are no postal addresses, use mobile phone numbers.

One of the most common mistakes marketers make when creating a consumer profile is optimizing for an intermediate action. For example, the most active subscribers will be girls from 18 to 24 years old. If advertising is based on the percentage of subscriptions, then this segment seems to be the most tasty morsel of the audience. However, sales analysis shows that the most active consumers are women over 25 years old, therefore, advertising needs to be corrected taking into account these data. In the "Audiences" section, a list of email addresses from "MailChimp" becomes available for viewing.

In order to study the characteristics of these buyers and compare with the average of all Facebook users, you need to go to Facebook Audience Insights and select Custom Audience.

In the left menu, click "Create an audience" → "Custom audience settings" and select the list loaded from "MailChimp".

We get the following tables:

The rich hue is the characteristics of those who subscribe to the newsletter, and the lighter gray color is the average of the entire Facebook audience.

Here you can also view information important for drawing up a portrait of the consumer about the field of activity and lifestyle of customers, and for residents of the United States, information is available on average income and used car brands.

Of particular interest is the opportunity to get acquainted with the data on which means mass media subscribers regularly read what brand new products they are interested in. This allows the seller to complement the portrait of the consumer with valuable details.

  • « SimilarWeb».

This service is designed to analyze several sites, here it is possible to get acquainted with the interests of your consumers and compare sites with a similar level of visits.

We go to SimilarWeb. On the main page, you must specify the site address.

We get access to the information we are interested in.

Consumer interests can be seen in the "Audience" section. Resources similar in terms of attendance are “Similar Sites”.

  • "In-market segments" by "Google AdWords".

A lot of useful information for drawing up a portrait of the modern consumer can be extracted from the AdWords advertising account. Here you can check the characteristics of users from remarketing lists.

Open your AdWords account and go to the Shared Library section. Select Audiences.

Now we need to define an interesting remarketing list. The "Audience Statistics" block opens. The resulting report has several sections.

For example, the Demographics report looks like this:

If you click on any one segment of the audience, you can get more detailed information about the group and how it compares to the AdWords audience in general. For example, in the "Devices" section, select a segment of subscribers using a computer:

As a result of using all available tools for obtaining information, we create a complete socio-demographic portrait of the consumer:

  • age;
  • the presence of children;
  • life style;
  • Job;
  • interests;
  • automobile;
  • location;
  • the language of communication;
  • operating system and browser installed on his computer;
  • the device he is using.

If your trading interests are focused on the western consumer, when drawing up a portrait, pay attention to the value of the visit, based on the version operating system, and get information from ad delivery systems who can provide targeting by OS version.

As a result of drawing up a portrait of a potential consumer, you have the opportunity to target a narrower audience, use the language they understand in communicating with customers, and maximize the effectiveness of marketing campaigns.