This is part 4 of the series “Targeting The Customer“, a 5-part series on using marketing automation to target customers and improve marketing effectiveness.

In Part 1 and Part 2 of this series, we discussed the role and methods of profiling customers and prospects.  In part 3, we discussed how to utilize profile data to send targeted content to your customer.  Yet the creating of your customer profile is never finished.  The targeted content sent needs to trigger follow-ups and provide for a refinement of the profile data, so that content that is even more targeted to the customer will be successful.

Triggers are one way to create refinement.  As a piece of dynamic content is viewed and acted upon, follow-up actions can automatically be triggered based on the recipient’s unique response.  Ideally, the triggers would go across marketing channels, and provide more valuable content to the customer as a result of their action.  With triggers, a phone call from a rep or an SMS text message can be sent as the result of the recipient’s action within an email.  Triggers can be chained together, allowing multiple paths to guide the recipient towards making a purchase, or at the very least, providing some profile refinement.

The key to a good profile is refining it.  As customers change, so too do their needs and interests.  The customer who bought from you five years ago, or even five days ago is not the same customer that exists today.  That is why the profile methods discussed earlier in this series need to be continually used together with triggers and dynamic content to gather more information about the customer’s current interests and needs.

The profile is never finished.  It continues to grow and change, be refined and molded, much in the way that people are.  By gathering good profiles on your customers and prospects, information can be directed towards that recipient that will more likely drive them to a sale.  The art of selling is knowing your customer, and profiling provides a major tool in that process.

This concludes the major body of the five-part series “Profiling the Customer.”  Part 5 will take a different tack, and focus on some newer and advanced concepts of profiling in relation to Social Profiling and customer targeting.

Related posts:

1. Utilizing the Profile: Dynamic Content Targets Customer Interests
2. Targeting The Customer: A Five-Part Series
3. Capturing Data: Technologies Available to Profile Your Customer
4. Profiling Your Customer Improves Marketing Potential
5. Marketing Is About Knowing Your Customer