:: CTB Consulting ::

	Why Customer Profiling is key The objective is twofold: Understand, through the extrapolation of known characteristics, which are the other unknown characteristics of customers, in particular those which determine (key drivers) the behavior and choices of customers about the offered products / services; Forecast, through the analysis of homogeneous groups ("clusters"), which will be the future behavior of customers in relation to the Company's initiatives regarding each of the elements of the marketing mix: product, price, distribution, communication.

	The transactional data and the "hidden face" of the Customers Today many Companies - especially in the services and retail industries - have a great availability of transactional information on customers (i.e. which goods / services the customer has or has not purchased and when). This great availability often leads those Companies to base profiling analysis almost exclusively on transactional data, possibly accompanied by basic demographic data (typically age and sex, immediately derived from the tax code). This "self-sufficient" approach, however, leaves almost always in the shadows yet several individual characteristics (attitudes, values, ways of life) which have a heavy influence on choices and behaviors in relation to the offered goods and services. This is for two reasons: The preponderance of transactional data leads to mistake a part (i.e. the behavior towards that brand / product / service) with the whole (i.e. the total set of behaviors with also the other brands / products / services. The increasing complexity of the society of the twenty-first century is only in (a small) part explained by the demographic dimension.

	The value of the Territory and the limits of the traditional segmentations The territory brings to the process of profiling a considerable wealth of information. Through the analysis of micro-territorial statistical data it is possible to enrich the process with socio-demographic (profession, type and size of households), financial (income and assets), economic (consumer behavior), shedding light on the "hidden face" of Customer Base. This is often a "black / white" light . The most important limitation that the micro-territorial segmentation has so far is that (depending on the sophistication of the model) in the best cases it used the prevailing characteristics, while in the worst ones the "medium" characteristics. This limit becomes important especially if we consider that the aim of profiling is to guide marketing activities that are much more effective when they are able to grasp and exploit the differences (of perception, attitude and behavior) among the various parties. The exploitation of "the prevailing profile" (even worse "the average") instead flattens the differences, then neutralizing from the outset a lot of the explanatory power of the micro-territorial data.

	Our answer: Value-Added Profiling CTB has developed with its partner Market Research institutes (GfK and SITA) the unique and innovative statistical tools which allow to: profile the territory with unprecedented richness because they reproduce at micro-territorial level (census block) the informative wealth (psichographic, beavioural, media consumption) derived from the in-depth quantitative research in the field. profile and enrich Prospects with unprecedented richness and speed because they are able to profile each record with the informative wealth (psichographic, beavioural, media consumption) derived from the in-depth quantitative research in the field. .