OPEN BUBBLES | Thoughts on startups from an entrepreneur, tree hugger, and geek in stilettos.
  • HOME
  • ABOUT
  • STARTUP
    • Analytics
    • Being a Woman Tech Founder
    • Minimum Viable Product (MVP)
    • Personalization
    • Public Relations
    • Social Enterprise
  • CONTACT
Knowing Your Customer Profile | Hacks to Understand Your Customer
Analytics, Startups 0

Tools to Understand Who Your Customer Is

By Adriana Herrera @adriana_herrera · On April 8, 2014

Knowing who your customer is (and is not) is critical to your ability to acquire more customers, to retain the customers you acquire, and to grow your business.

THE CUSTOMER PROFILE
A customer profile is an understanding of who your customer is and what makes them tick. This is slightly different than a customer segment in that a customer segment looks solely at attributes rather than attributes and reasons for those attributes.

Understanding who your customer is and what drives them empowers you to engage them, find more of them in their “natural habitat”, give them more of what they want, and to build authentic relationships with them. In turn, all of this “understanding” helps you to scale your business.

HOW I VIEW A CUSTOMER PROFILE
Understanding a customer profile can be broken down a few ways. I like to dive into the details of customer profiles by first looking at the traffic source (i.e. how did someone get to the site) then I like to use qualitative information and analytics to answer the following questions for that traffic source so that I may understand the type of customer that visitor may be:

  • Why are they visiting the site?
  • What gets them excited to come back to the site?
  • What gets them excited enough to share the site?
  • What is the point of conversion?

The questions above can be answered both via analytics and qualitative feedback.

QUALITATIVE FEEDBACK
On the qualitative side of things tools like Survey i.o. and Zopim give you a way to understand what a user/ customer is thinking and feeling about your site:

  • Zopim is a live customer support tools that allows you to talk with customers in real-time. Zopim leaves a history of conversations so you can go back through and understand trends in feedback.
  • Survey i.o. is a customer development tool made up of eight questions that help you understand how someone got to your site, what they like, and how it can be improved. Click here for an example.

Qualitative feedback takes time to go through. Unless a process is built around analysis qualitative feedback can also be dangerous because it can allow us to see what we want to see rather than what is being said. As such, building a process is very important!

ANALYTICS
On the analytics side I’ve used Google Analytics, KissMetrics, Facebook Interests and Likes, and expressed user preferences to understand the traffic sources customers come from, what segments of customers like what features, engagement paths, what segments of customers are likely to convert into customers (and at what rate/ likelihood), what “hot” points of conversion are, etc. In case you’re not familiar with the tools mentioned above here’s a brief description of them:

  • Google Analytics is a free tool “offered by Google that generates detailed statistics about a website’s traffic and traffic sources and measures conversions and sales.”
  • While Google Analytics tells you what a user is doing on your site, KissMetrics tells you who is doing what. KissMetrics lets you know how people get to your site, what they do, and which people make purchases.
  • Facebook Interests and Likes are gathered by asking people to log in to your site using Facebook. There are varying levels of information you can ask for when someone signs in using Facebook. I found there is very little difference in sign up drop off when asking for the basic information and all the information.

THE BIG PICTURE
When you understand where your customers are coming from and the profiles of the customers that come from those sources you understand what is (and is not) driving your business. Below is high level graph of what this looks like:

Referral Source and Actions

A business cannot be all things to all people. Understanding who is passionate about your business and why they are passionate about your business is critical to developing strategies to grow your business.

My next post will provide an example of compiling a customer profile via one referral source of traffic.

customer profilecustomer segmentDatademographicfeedbackqualitativetraffic source
Share Tweet

Adriana Herrera

Adriana Herrera is a tech entrepreneur, tree hugger, and geek in stilettos. She spends her time building EpicHint.com, surfing, and cooking with family.

You Might Also Like

  • Woman with finger against lips asking for quiet Startups

    Does success in the Silicon Valley come from silence?

  • Data and Cohort Reports are Dope Analytics

    How to Build a Cohort Report

  • Developing and Using Cohort Reports | Supporting Product Decisions with Data Analytics

    What is a Cohort Report?

No Comments

Leave a reply Cancel reply

Subscribe By E-mail

About

Adriana Herrera
Hi my name is Adriana Herrera. I'm an entrepreneur. I've founded companies in tech and outside of tech. I taught myself to code while drinking wine one summer. I wear stilettos and have a closet full of dresses I love! I've written columns in publications like The New York Times. I was named a Top 20 Latino Innovator by NBC/ NBC Latino. Yup, I'm Mexican. I'm very proud of my heritage and the amazing cooking skills passed down to me by my mother and abuelita.

I love reading blogs. I've found that most of the blogs I read are written by men so I thought I'd start my own, Open Bubbles. I write about what I know...building a startup, PR, marketing, data, and developing product. I like conversation and new friends. So feel free to comment, 'Connect', and follow.

Thanks for stopping by!

With Aloha,
Adriana Herrera
adriana@openbubbles.com

Learn about the 'Open Bubbles' name here.

Subscribe & Follow

Follow @@adriana_herrera
Follow on Instagram
Follow adrianaherrera
'FOLLOW' if you support, and want to see more, women in tech.
  • HOME
  • ABOUT
  • STARTUP
    • Analytics
    • Being a Woman Tech Founder
    • Minimum Viable Product (MVP)
    • Personalization
    • Public Relations
    • Social Enterprise
  • CONTACT

ABOUT

Open Bubbles is a site dedicated to information on startups, PR, marketing, product development, data, and being a Mexican woman entrepreneur.

Click here to learn about the entrepreneur, tree hugger, and geek in stilettos behind Open Bubbles.

Categories

  • Analytics (6)
  • Being a Woman Tech Founder (2)
  • Email Marketing (1)
  • Human Rights (2)
  • Minimum Viable Product (MVP) (4)
  • Personalization (1)
  • Politics (2)
  • Public Relations (2)
  • Social Enterprise (1)
  • Startups (21)

Latest Posts

  • Using, or not using, #BlackLivesMatter, #BrownLivesMatter, and #AllLivesMatter

    Using, or not using, #BlackLivesMatter, #BrownLivesMatter, and #AllLivesMatter

    June 3, 2020
  • Public phone key pad

    Migrant Detainees Charged $8.00/ Minute to Use the Phone. Donate to Give Them a Voice.

    June 22, 2018

Search the Site

© 2013 Open Bubbles. All rights reserved.