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Market and customer research

Customer profile chart

Profiling your customers gives you the opportunity to understand a range of key information about them – including their income level, location and buying behaviour. Researching your customers to create a customer profile will help you to understand who they are, so you know how best to reach them from a marketing perspective. For example, if your customers are active in the local school community, you could promote your business by sponsoring the school fete each year.

Create a profile of your customers by reading the questions below and typing your answers into the customer profile chart.

Who are they? My customers
Age (e.g. child, teenager, young, middle aged, retired)
Family (e.g. size, non-traditional, extended)
Gender (male, female)
Occupation (e.g. labourer, technical, professional)
Income level (e.g. lower, middle, high)
Education (e.g. primary, secondary, tertiary)
Cultural background (e.g. Caucasian, African, Asian)
Where are they?  
Location (e.g. inner city, suburbs, rural)
Distance (e.g. distance from your business, locality preference)
Residence (e.g. low, medium, or high density housing)
Customer characteristics  
Personality (e.g. leader, status conscious, outgoing, introvert)
Buying behaviour (e.g. comfort, convenience, economical, pride)
Buying patterns (e.g. seasonal, usage rate, frequency of purchase)
Lifestyle (e.g. health conscious, family orientated, career orientated, community active)
Expectations (e.g. service, quality, risk, influence)

Also consider...

  • Last reviewed: 18 Jul 2017
  • Last updated: 28 Jun 2016