Are your customers real people?

Need to get back in touch with your customers? Create customer profiles. Do it on paper or digitally, but do it.

Find photos of the types of people your “ideal” customers are, and build a full profile. Give them a name, find a photo, feel free to poke into their lives (after all, they’re just figments of your imagination). What are their hobbies, what car do they drive, what sporting teams do they follow, what’s their favourite food, what are their Top Ten books, movies etc? Describe what they eat for breakfast. Name their children, if they have them.

Of most importance, be careful not to fall into stereotypes. Real people are not stereotypes, and they are bound to surprise you, so make sure you have some ‘surprises’ in there too.

Then, when you are trying to develop a product, build a marketing campaign, or simply communicate with your customer, pull out your customer profile and feel like you’re talking to a ‘real’ person.