The importance of customer profiling is key as finding customers in challenging economic times can be challenging.
Particularly within business to business markets profiling your customers to sell more effectively and easily should be straightforward. Even with consumer marketing, knowing something about the demographics of your customer by postcode will tell you some interesting things.
With B2B marketing, selling, telesales and customer service, taking some time out to look at who you sell to can be done in minutes. The things you need to know are the industry sector they’re in, and ideally the size of the company. For instance knowing whether they are a large, medium sized or small business is helpful.
Then profile other companies who are similar. If for instance you have a couple of key customers or clients in plastic packaging or fine chemicals distribution or the public sector such as councils, it may be that companies in this sector are spending at the moment, and/or doing well.
And the other tip is to look at your customer’s website to see how THEY describe the market they’re in. This is more useful than you deciding. Then use these terms and put them into Google to find others who do the same.