Profile of the ideal customer: the keys to defining it

Melanie Robin
January 3, 2024
5:24 p.m.
0 comments

Updated January 19, 2024

The concept of the ideal customer profile, or buyer persona, goes beyond simple demographic data: it encompasses various aspects such as communication preferences, online habits and emotional reactions when purchasing. An in-depth understanding of your prospects allows, among other things, to create tailor-made content, adapted to their specific needs. It's not just what you offer, but also how and when you offer it that matters. By asking targeted questions and analyzing the answers, you refine your marketing strategies to reach your potential and current customers with the precision of an archer... but without the bow and arrows! To help you better understand and engage your leads at each stage of their buying journey, discover this list of 47 key questions. It will be your ally to adjust your communication actions and brilliantly optimize your digital strategy.

Ideal customer profile: simple definition

The customer profile is the semi-fictional and detailed representation of your target customer based on demographic, behavioral and psychological data. In other words, it's like creating the sketch of your ideal client. Imagine entering the world of your customers, knowing their preferences, habits and motivations inside out. That’s what customer profiles provide: a clear view of who your dream customers are. It's a way to understand them in depth, what they want, and how you can offer them exactly what they need.

In short, it's the key to reaching your target customer's heart and creating experiences that truly resonate with them.

The prospect/client’s identity card

Discover the detailed portrait of your prospects or customers, particularly effective in the context of a marketing strategy.Inbound Marketing. These questions guide you through the sociodemographic aspects, daily life, consumption habits and problems of your potential customers, offering a holistic vision that facilitates the personalization of your commercial approaches.

Sociodemographic questions

Understanding the socio-demographic context of your customers is essential. These questions aim to identify their living environment, their family, professional and educational situation. This in-depth knowledge allows you to create more targeted and relevant marketing campaigns.

What is his marital status?
Does he live in the city or in the countryside?
Is he the owner or tenant?
What is his gender? (man, woman, transgender, non-binary...)
How old is he ?
Does he have children? How much ? What ages?
What sector does he work in?
What is his position?
What is his annual income?
What promotion does he want to have?
How long has he been in his current position?
What is his level of education?

Questions about daily life

The daily lives of your customers reveal their preferences and routines. By exploring their daily activities, hobbies and relationships, you can better understand their needs and motivations, to design marketing messages that truly resonate with them.

13. What does his typical day look like?

14. How much time does he spend at work and at home?

15. What are his hobbies?

16. Who are the most important people in his life?

17. How does he move?

18. What type of vehicle does he own?

19. What shows does he watch on television?

Questions about consumption habits

The consumption habits of your potential customers are a key indicator of their purchasing behavior. By focusing on their product choices, shopping locations, and service preferences, you can refine your strategies to better meet their expectations.

20. Where does he look for information about a product or service?

21. What online resources does he use?

22. Where does he prefer to shop?

23. Who should I contact for complaints?

24. What kind of mobile phone does he use?

Questions about the issues

These questions help you identify the problems and frustrations of your potential customers, but also to understand their daily challenges. The objective? Adapt your products and services to better meet their requirements.

25. What was the most frustrating event in your day?

26. What is the worst experience you have had with customer service?

27. What daily activity does he find stressful?

28. What makes him nervous or angry?

29. What part of his job does he like least?

30. Has he ever made a disappointing purchase after investing a lot of money? (If yes which ?)

31. What worries him on a daily basis?

32. What is he proud of among all his accomplishments?

Marketing persona example (simplified)

Analytical data about your business

Analytical data provides precise perspective on the performance of your business. By examining the impact of your marketing and sales actions, you can adjust your strategies to maximize effectiveness and impact on your targets.

Analysis of the impact of marketing and commercial actions

These questions guide you through examining your objectives, the behavior of your site visitors and the effectiveness of your campaigns, allowing you to optimize your future marketing strategies!

33. What are your goals?

34. What demographic and technical information do you have about your website visitors?

35. What is your current market position?

36. What marketing campaigns have been successful?

37. What marketing campaigns didn't work?

38. Which content generated the most traffic?

39. What questions do customers ask most often (on the blog, social networks, by email, etc.)?

40. Which articles received the most interactions?

41. What experiences have been successful?

42. What are the main questions asked by your prospects?

43. What are the main questions asked by your customers?

Need help creating your personas?

Questions about current customer profiles

Understand your customer profile is important to maintain and improve your relationship with them. These questions help you identify the characteristics and preferences of customers who already interact with your business, providing valuable insights for your future campaigns.

44. What types of clients do you usually receive?

45. What types of customers make purchases?

46. What reasons do customers cite for making a purchase from you?

47. What are the most common reasons customers give for not buying from you?

Why create a Buyer Persona in marketing?

Creating the customer profile (or customer profiles, as you may have multiple types of ideal customers) is a key part of developing products, creating content, or implementing a marketing strategy. It's more than just a step in the process — I believe it's the magic wand that allows you to personalize your approach.

For example, your marketing strategy will differ depending on whether you are targeting travelers looking for off-the-beaten-path destinations, or customers looking for luxurious and relaxing travel experiences.

Discovering who your ideal customers are:

adapt your marketing strategy to the specific needs of your audience;
create products/services that directly meet the expectations of your target customers;
optimize your market segmentation;
communicate in an effective and targeted manner;
improve customer experience ;
retain your customers;
remain alert to market trends, developments and demands;
reduce costs for your business.

What to avoid when creating customer profile

Avoiding these simple pitfalls will help you build your persona identity cards in an authentic and relevant way to guide your marketing actions.

Placing too much trust in your intuition

Trusting your instincts when it comes to marketing is a good practice, but it can sometimes work tricks on you. By relying solely on your feelings or assumptions to create your personas, you risk reducing the world of your customers to a simple caricature. Marketing personas should be based on real data, collected from your current and potential customers. You must create realistic and representative personas of your target customers, they don't have to be perfect!

Making generalizations

By creating personas that are too homogeneous, you lose the essence of your target customers. Let the richness of its diversity when creating customer profiles.

Forgetting to refresh data

If you don't update your personas regularly, you'll lose them along the way. Your target clientele is constantly evolving, get into the habit of planning regular updates collected data to ensure it remains relevant and accurate.

Ignoring customer feedback

Customer feedback is a valuable source of information about the needs and expectations of your target customers. Collect customer feedback whether through surveys, interviews, or other methods and incorporate it into creating and updating your personas.

Neglecting internal collaboration

Creating customer profiles doesn't have to be reserved for marketing whizzes. Get everyone involved! Involve the entire team in creating Buyer Personas to have a 360° vision.

Note: I advise you to limit the number of personas you create. For what ? Because it can quickly become unmanageable and lead to confusion. Find a happy medium to create a relevant number of customer portraits, ideally between 3 and 5 (while obviously taking into account your marketing objectives and the type of activity). Prioritize quality over quantity by focusing on detailed, useful personas rather than a multitude of superficial customer profiles.

What tools to define your personae?

Here are some useful resources to guide you in creating your personas:

Web analysis : explore user behavior on your site with tools like Google Analytics 4, Matamo, SEMrush.

Mind maps : organize and visualize persona characteristics with tools like MindMap Tab.

Social networks and forums : immerse yourself in online discussions to understand the trends and preferences of your audience (Facebook groups, Reddit, Quora, etc.).

Questionnaires : Collect data with user-friendly tools like Google Forms, Survez Monkey, etc.

Formatting with templates : Bring your Buyer Personas to life using ready-to-use templates! I am thinking in particular of the platform HubSpot which guides you step by step. You can also use the essential design software Can go or Xtensio.

Note: While these tools are valuable, they do not replace the importance of conducting interviews (phone, video, or face-to-face) with your target users to obtain direct and relevant information.

What you must remember

Understanding the target customer profile is more essential than ever. It's no longer just a question of "who" you're targeting, but rather "why would my customers buy my product or service." These 47 questions to define your Buyer Personas can first be asked during a brainstorming session with your teams. The best thing is to bring together the services in direct contact with prospects and customers (sales, marketing, after-sales service, customer service, etc.) and ask these questions to find out everyone's opinions. Then, you must also analyze the impact of your actions to refine the profile. Finally, don’t hesitate to launch a major survey and poll among your consumers.

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