Thoughtful manWhen I first started blogging for Buildicus, I struggled a bit with the tone of my posts. It didn’t take me long to realize I had absolutely no idea who I was writing for.

I soon learned that the best way to answer the question of “Who is this for?” is to create customer profiles. That is, to literally create bios of the folks who make up our target audience.

Creating customer bios or profiles lets you tailor all content to the needs of the people whose attention (and dollah bill$) you most want to attract. In other words, when you write all emails, blog posts, website headlines, etc, you can gear them toward your customer, and they will hit home.

Creating profiles helps you solve problems

Knowing exactly who your customer is lets you anticipate their needs, and lets you find solutions to their problems. I’m going to say something super important here, and I’ll even bold it so it stands out:

What people really want when they visit a small business website is a solution to their problem.

Everyone has a problem. Everyone, even if they don’t know it. And you have the solution. You do! But you won’t know what that solution is until you do some research into your target audience.

Creating profiles helps focus your content creation

I said before that by figuring out who your customer is, you can tailor content to their needs. I mean that in two ways:

1. It can help you determine how to present content. If you’re spending energy building up your Facebook page, and your customers aren’t on social media, that’s wasted energy. If you’re pouring all your time into a kickass blog, and 74% of your clients use the Internet just to check their email, that’s wasted energy.

Knowing how your customers receive information will help you figure out the best way to get your message to them.

2. It can help you determine the tone of your content. Knowing certain things about your customer can help you figure out how to talk to them. For example, if your average customer is a 63-year-old woman, references in your content to Wu Tang Clan might not hit home. Or they might, if your customer base is a bunch of hip hop-loving grandmas. The point is to know for sure either way.

What you should know about your customers

So, what exactly should you know about your customers in order to create customer profiles? Things like:

• Age

• Gender

• Education

• Profession

• Hobbies

• Where they live

• What their goals are

• What their needs are

• Lifestyle

• Habits

• Do they use a PC, a tablet, and/or a smartphone?

• Do they check their email daily?

• Are they on social media? Which networks?

• What time of day are they active online? Do they check email/social media only during business hours?

• How did they find your business?

• What made them decide to use your business?

• What makes them continue to use your business?

Once you have the information you’re seeking, you can write a bio for your customer, something like:

“Our customer is a 43-year-old male. He’s married, has three kids, and lives in Clovis, California. He has some college education, and owns his own business He checks email once before work, and once before end of day. He’s on Facebook, but only updates his status twice a week. He owns a smartphone, but generally uses his PC to receive and send information. He uses our company because he appreciates our responsive customer service…”

How to research your customers

There are a number of ways you can figure out who your customers are.

• Ask them. If you have a dozen or so customers who have been with you for awhile and won’t be put off by your asking for information, hit them up either by phone or email. Let them know you’re looking to improve customer service and communication, and ask if they wouldn’t mind answering a few survey questions.

• Put a survey on your site. You can easily add a survey to your website by using a free service like Survey Monkey.

• Monitor social media. Find out who your customers are by stalking checking them out on social media. Look, it’s not stalking if it’s public info, right? So pick a few customers with public profiles and see who they are.

In conclusion

Creating customer profiles can be the difference between randomly throwing things at the wall to see what sticks, and having a legit marketing plan. When you know your customers’ needs, you can get to work meeting them, making you a business superhero, minus the sexy tights.