A better way to build customer profiles
You’ve probably seen some version of this going around:
Interest and demographics based profiles are in complete.
But this doesn’t mean we should stop using them altogether.
We need to build customer profiles around behaviour and consumption goals.
Life Themes and Projects are long-term.
Our life themes are driven by our sense of self, personal history, childhood, family relations, and education. Our values remain relatively stable throughout our lives and act as a yardstick for our goals and actions. Some do change, but only slowly and over time.
Our life projects are relatively long-term commitments driven by the different roles at different stages of our lives (e.g. being a good father, a responsible student, a loyal employee, or a good teacher). Our life projects change over time and have an essential role in our decisions and behaviours.
Current Concerns and Consumption Intentions are more urgent.
Our current concern is a to-do list of activities and everyday tasks that drive us forward in our lives. These everyday activities are ‘top of mind’, and completing them takes priority over everything else. Our current life projects drive this list of activities (e.g. getting a job or graduating from school)
Psychologists have successfully used interview probes. Asking questions like ‘tell me about the things you’re currently trying to do’ can help you explore peoples’ current concerns.
Our consumption intentions drive our decisions to consume products or experiences. If our current concerns is a list of activities, consumption intentions are the means with which we get them done. But more than features (which will come later), consumption intentions are Jobs-to-be-Done.
Benefits Sought and Features Preferences are immediate.
This is the first time a product comes into the picture.
The benefits sought are the satisfaction, enjoyment, comfort, convenience, profit, or gain we expect from consuming a product or an experience.
Finally, our feature preferences are specific product attributes like prices, weight, size, durability etc. While benefits sought are subjective to a person, feature preferences are concrete. Our feature preferences are the final piece in the puzzle influencing our decision to purchase one product over another.
That’s why I think customer profiles based on demographics and interests alone are incomplete.
They can help us create cohorts, but lack the depth marketers need to understand what drives peoples’ decisions and actions.
