Want to rock the results of your next personalized marketing campaign? Profile before you personalize! What do we mean by that? We mean understanding what your customers look like as aggregate demographic or psychographic groups before you send targeted mailings or personalize to them as individuals.

As a very simplified example, let’s take age. Each age demographic tends to have different priorities and differing responses to different types of messaging. By running a very simple analysis, for example, you might find that your customer base looks like this:

• 18-34 years old (38%)

• 35-49 years old (30%)

• 50-64 years old (18%)

• 65+ years old (14%)

If you’ve never profiled your customers by age, these numbers might surprise you. Did you know that your customers are heavily skewed toward the younger demographics? If not, why do you think this is? Could you increase the purchases from the older audiences by crafting your messaging differently? Should you use a different channel mix for each segment? Profiling gives you critical insight to use in developing your campaigns.

Likewise, consumers behave differently based on where they live. Consumer attitudes in New Hampshire will vary considerably from those in the Deep South. Red States and Blue States may have very different preferences and attitudes about certain issues, products, and services.

Look at other characteristics, as well. Where do your customers prefer to shop (brick-and-mortar store or online)? What marketing channels do they respond to (direct mail, e-mail or text messaging)?

Once you understand the profile of your customer base, you can compare these profiles against well-known demographic and psychographic patterns to anticipate what types of messaging are most likely to resonate and get the best results.

So profile before you personalize!