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Creating Customer Profiles for Your Marketing

by Nick Gromicko and Kate Tarasenko 
 
 
From a marketing standpoint, there is nothing like delivering the right message to the right prospect, at the right time.  There is little sense in wasting money on advertising that reaches prospects who have no use for your products or services.  To customize messages for your potential clients, you need to have information about them--information that you intentionally gather and store.  This information can also be used to create loyal customer relationships, whether those clients are repeat customers or whether they refer you to other new customers. 
 
As an example of how customer profiling works, it's been proven that online purchasing is enhanced when buyers are shown other choices similar to ones they've already made, or from vendors they've already purchased from, or even those whose sites they've simply browsed.  These "recommendations," such as those shown while you're shopping on Amazon.com, or the scrolling ads that appear in your free email account window, are the result of mining stored data using cookies and analytics.  But just because you may be a one-person operation doesn't mean that you can't do some of this valuable data-mining yourself, old-school.
 
Here are some examples of things you should consider trying to capture when “profiling” your inspection customers:

You should also compile data about the home itself, such as:

Don't forget to track and update information having to do with your own interaction and transaction(s) with your clients, such as:

 
You can gather all this information from a number of sources, including on the jobsite, from your own client paperwork, and from public records (such as those found in person or online through the county tax assessor's department, and other public sources).  Each time you interact with your customer, his/her profile should evolve.
 
By entering this data into a basic spreadsheet program, you can not only keep track of client data in an organized way, but you can use certain information for occasional targeted campaigns that focus only on certain clients in certain areas or those having specific identifiers or demographics. 
 
Here are some examples: 
You can take this a step further based on current events or trends, such as:
 
If you send out monthly e-newsletters to your past clients, you can use some of this information to customize them for your subscribers.  This personalized touch will make your marketing memorable.
 
It's not necessary (and not very smart time- or money-wise) to launch only single-note, generic advertising campaigns and then cross your fingers and hope they reach someone who needs what you're offering.  These days, it's easier than you think to actually target clients who want your services.
 
There is a surprising amount of easy-to-access customer information that you can plug into your own marketing plan, and some of it you simply have to observe or ask for; the rest you can find online, and without paying for it, like the big dogs do.  So, make the most of your marketing by customizing the right message to "hyper-target" the right customer at the right time.  
 
 
InspectorSeek.com
 

 

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