How to implement your consumer profiling insights

Running your consumer profiling research probably won’t be the end of your insight-gathering process. 

Far from it. 

Consumer profiling is often the first step brands take in their research process. For example…

Trying to figure out who might buy that amazing new product you’ve been cooking up? Now you’ve run your consumer profiling you can define the audience segments you’ll run your new product development (NPD) research with.

Planning a game changing OOH campaign and need to know what your target audience thinks about your creative assets? Consumer profiling will help you segment the right audience for your creative concept testing.

Now that you’ve gathered your consumer profiling insights, it’s time to use them. Here are the key steps for you to take after running your consumer profiling research.

Your key steps after running consumer profiling research 

Test and validate (or invalidate) your hypotheses

Ideally before you began your consumer profiling research, you came up with some hypotheses around what your insights might uncover. Now that you’ve run your consumer profiling, it’s time to check back in with those hypotheses! 

Pro tip 💡
“Remember it doesn’t matter whether or not your hypotheses have been proved right or wrong. What’s important is that you now have more clarity than you did before, and that you’ve set yourself up for whatever your next research step is.”

Nick White

Customer Research Lead

Align your company around the main consumer profiles and personas you’ve identified

Through analyzing your consumer profiling research results, you now have the data to be able to create specific profiles that demonstrate how your product or service is the ideal fit for your target customers. 

Your customer profiles should detail the attitudes and behaviors that mark a segment out as the right people your brand should appeal to. 

At this point it’s time to put your creative hat on! Bring your profiles to life: give them a name, a location, some hobbies… By creating a portrait of each customer segment, different teams across your organization will know who they should be marketing to, selling to and developing products for. 

This not only maximizes the effectiveness of your research but gives them the tools they need to be clear on how to answer the needs of each segment, ultimately aiding growth.

Eat, sleep, research, repeat!

Customer profiling is an easily repeatable process. By carrying it out on a regular basis, you’ll always be aware of any emerging trends and changes in attitudes among your customers or potential customers—and be in a good position to act on them. 

Once you’ve created your working customer profiles, repeat as every year or two (how often will depend on how changeable your market is). With new competitors, new influencers and brand new customers all entering the market, the perceptions and status quos will shift with time.

Use the insights to inform your next research project

To quote ourselves:

‘Consumer profiling is often the first step brands take in their research process.’

With that mind, you’re in a prime position to run your next research project now that you’ve learned more about your target customers.