Customer profile - How to target your dream client

This blog post will teach you how to create a customer profile and target your dream client for your small business. It includes a free downloadable PDF to make it super easy.

What is a customer profile?

A customer profile is like creating an avatar.

You want to imagine up a person who is your dream client and describe their attributes, personality, values, dreams, pain points and more.

It’s essentially a list of demographics and psychographics.

Why is a consumer profile important?

Not profiling who your business is targeting, is like taking a leap in the dark.

Having a customer profile makes it so much easier to do fundamental business tasks such as branding and marketing.

It will enable you to know who you are talking to, where to talk to them and how to talk them.

It’s essentially one of the first steps any business should take, as well as creating a business profile.

To any new branding clients I take on I give them this interactive customer profile PDF to fill out. This is phase one of the branding process as it will lay the strategy for how the brand design will develop to achieve the maximum impact for them and their business.

dream client template

Get the free customer profile PDF

customer profile free download

1. Gender

We know that gender is on a spectrum but having a ball park of who to aim for will make your life much easier.

2. Age

What age bracket do they sit in? 

0-2, 3-13, 13-17, 18-24, 25-34, 35-44, 45-54, 55-64, 65+

2. Location

Which country do they live in? Even better if you can narrow it down to a county or even post code!

Not profiling who your business is targeting, is like taking a leap in the dark.

4. Profession

What do they do for a living? Are they employed, un-employed, self employed, retired? Have they had a career change? What is their highest qualification?

Need some design help?

5. Political stance

Are the left wing, right wing or somewhere in between?

6. Income

How much do they earn personally earn? Or their household earn?

7. family

Do they have a family? Are they looking to start a family? What does their family do?

8. Personality

List their personality traits.

9. Life priorities

Is their goal in life to create a successful business? Work their way up the corporate ladder? To retire at 50? To have a family? To be healthy? To be happy?

10. Hobbies

What do they do in their down time? Do they have much down time?

11. Watches on Tv

What do they watch on TV? What channels? Maybe they only watch Netflix or YouTube, maybe they don’t own a TV.

12. Listens to

What do they listen to? Do they have a favourite band? Are they a die hard fan of someone? Do they like going to concerts or festivals, if so which ones?

13. Reads

Do they read fiction or non fiction? Do they prefer to listen to audiobooks, buy on kindle or have a physical book? What is their favourite author and genre?

14. Online presence

Where do they hang out online? Do they have social media, if so on which platforms? Do they use the internet all of the time or is it occasional use? What do they use the internet for?

15. Favourite brands

What are their favourite shops? Where do they buy their clothes and food?

16. Where do they find you/your business

Do they find you by walking down the high street? Online through social media? Email marketing? Cold calling?

17. How do they buy from you

In person? Online? Is it an impulse purchase or a considered purchase? Are they buying from themselves or someone else?

18. How do they receive from you

Does it arrive in the post? As a digital file? A workshop? A service?

19. How do you follow up

Do you give them a call? A thank you note? An email? A follow on social media? A discount code?

my services

Branding
Bespoke branding that connects with your customers and communicates your brands purpose.
Brand Packages
Packaging
Communicating and building upon a brand identity to sell your products.
Packaging services
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20. Their headaches/pains/fears

What are their bug bears? What stops them from achieving what they want to acheive?

21. How you/your business relieves those pains

Do you provide a product that resolves that issue? Do you teach them how to achieve what they want to achieve? Do you relieve stress? Give them back their time?

22. Their hopes/dreams/gains

What do they want to achieve? Accomplish? Do?

23. How you/your business creates those gains

Do you provide them with a service that allows them to achieve a personal or business goal? Allow them to get a create return on in investment? Do you give them confidence? Teach them a new skill?

Summary

I know it can feel uncomfortable to put a ‘person’ into neatly defined boxes because of course that is not how the real world works.

HOWEVER, doing this task will really help you to clarify at least the general ball park of who you are aiming your business at and remember this is a dream client.

If you do have different products or services that cater to different types of people by then all means create multiple customer profiles.

You can also extend this summarised customer profile into a full blown essay or even create a mood board of them or a CV, get creative.

It’s also okay for your customer profile to change and evolve, you’re not always going to hit the nail on the head first time.

If you haven’t already I would also highly recommend filling out a business profile, probably best to do so before doing this customer profile.

If you have any questions please don’t hesitate to contact me.

Happy customer profiling!

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