This is part 2 of the series “Targeting The Customer“, a 5-part series on using marketing automation to target customers and improve marketing effectiveness.

In the first post of this series, we discussed the importance of profiling and it’s purpose in gathering information regarding customer behavior and preference, and utilizing that data to target the customer with content that most meets his or her needs.  In the process of targeted marketing, gathering the information is the first crucial step.  There are many ways to obtain this data, but three of the most common are profile forms, automated web behavior tracking, and surveys.

Profile Forms: These forms help to determine what types of messages the customer wants to receive and what the customer’s interests are by simply and directly asking the customer.  Whether it be a landing page from an ad buy, a link from a newsletter, or a required form on your website, the profile page can be one of the more effective means of gathering customer information.  To entice the customer to fill out the form, however, there needs to be some sort of hook.  When designing a profile page and a campaign to gather customer information, consider the following:

• Offer the customer valuable content that is not sales-focused when filling out the profile form.  If the profile form is for a newsletter or other such publication, make sure that the newsletter promises (and the delivers) industry and subject area knowledge that could be of interest to the customer.
• Create a special offer (i.e. coupon-type event) to entice the customer to fill out the form.
• Require the filling in of the profile before the customer gets a piece of content that he or she wants (e.g. a White Paper).

When creating your profile form, make sure that you do more than ask for the customer’s contact information.  Ask questions about the customer’s specific interests relating to your product line, and about preferences in communications and alerts.  For example, a sporting goods store may ask about the sports a person is interested in, their level of interest (spectator, active player, semi-pro, etc.) while a software company may ask questions relating to their different software products. When designing the form, be forward thinking and ask yourself what types of content you could deliver as a result of the customer answering this question.

Web Behavior Tracking: By understanding what an individual customer or prospect is doing on your website, you can get a better picture of what their interests are without having to ask them a lot of questions.  You may get interests that the customer doesn’t know they have, based on what pages they tend to browse on your website.  Web behavior tracking works best when:

• Your website has a lot of content.  Sites with blogs, articles, and white papers have a much better ability to get repeat customer visits than static sites that just pitch product.  Ensure you have a good, regular flow of content being added to your site.
• You track your customer visits.  A website can detect IP addresses, but that approach is somewhat limited.  A good web behavior tracking system will request a simple identifier for browsing content (email address), place a cookie on the customer’s browser, and then associate any website activity with that email address.  This allows you to also combine web tracking behavior with customer profile information.

Surveys: Like profile pages, surveys are a manual data-capture element.  Unlike profile pages, a survey gives a customer the opportunity to respond to questions about interests and their experience with your company in a way that seems less invasive than a profile form.  Surveys are good tools for collecting this data, provided that my rules for creating effective surveys are followed (these rules were written in regards to customer service surveys, but apply equally well to profiling surveys.)

Of course, once you have profile data, it’s what you do with that data that really counts.  In part 3 of this series, we will take a look at how to utilize the profile data in your marketing campaigns with dynamic content.

Related posts:

1. Profiling Your Customer Improves Marketing Potential
2. Utilizing the Profile: Dynamic Content Targets Customer Interests
3. Response To The Content: Triggers and Refining the Profile
4. Targeting The Customer: A Five-Part Series