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Application of automatic customer profiling in small companies

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João Félix a026512 Mestrado de Marketing
A aplicação da criação automática de perfis de
clientes em pequenas empresas
Marketing Tradicional; Inbound Marketing; Foco; Clientes; Profiling; Dados; Bases de dados
de Marketing; Data Mining

Application of automatic customer profiling in

small companies
Tradition Marketing; Inbound Marketing; Focus; Customers; Profiling; Data; Database
Marketing; Data Mining

João Félix

Resumo Abstract
O Marketing nos dias de hoje sobre uma mudança Marketing today is suffering a shift from traditional
de paradigma do Marketing tradicional para o Marketing to Inbound Marketing. Marketing is
Inbound Marketing. O Marketing deixa o seu foco leaving its traditional focus in finding customers to
tradicional em encontrar clientes para ser be found by customers. Two process are extremely
encontrado pelos clientes. Dois processos são important in this new perspective, content and
extremamente importantes nesta nova perspetiva, profile creation. The main objective of this research
criação de conteúdos e perfis. O objetivo desta is to Inquire about the representation that managers
pesquisa é de indagar sobre a representação que os have about the customer data acquisition leading to
gerentes têm sobre a aquisição de dados de profiling. The Specific objectives of this research is to
consumidores que levem a criação de perfis. Como perform a series of interviews with experts on
objetivos específico desta pesquisa é a realização de management and marketing to collect their personal
uma serie de entrevistas com peritos em Gestão e insights about the theme, that could better direct my
Marketing para recolher os seus pontos de vista further study’s on the creation of an automated
pessoais sobre o tema, que possam melhor customer profile thru the use of database marketing
direcionar os meus futuros estudos sobre a criação and data mining techniques that could lead to a
de uma modelo para a obtenção automática de considerable impact in the way profiling in made.
perfis clientes através de técnicas de bases de dados
Marketing e data mining. Este modelo poderia ter
um grande impacto na forma como o profiling seria
feito.

Research Methodology / Mestrado de Marketing / 1 of 22

Introduction
On today´s world Marketing is suffering a paradigm shift from traditional Marketing
into Inbound Marketing.
Traditional Marketing is focus in finding customers thus uses interruptive techniques
like: cold-calling, printed press, television commercials and junk mail. This techniques
became obsolete by the use of caller-id that blocks cold-calls, the use of DVR makes
television commercials less effective, and spam filters blocks mass email campaigns.
This techniques can still be use but, the cost of marketing per client increases
significantly. Traditional Marketing is marketer-focus and so the Marketer can create
and push content to the market, even when the potential customer doesn’t what it,
there for creating bad experience to the potential buyer (Costa, 2010).
At the other side of this paradigm is Inbound Marketing. This new approach is
customer-centric and focus in giving the empowerment to the user. This new
methodology to be more effective needs to create content that is relevant to the user,
and really important to them, there for attracting them into the Inbound Marketer
offer in opposite to the Traditional Marketing approach.
To create a content that is relevant to the user, the Marketer first has to know them,
know what are their problems and how can help them resolve them. Frist, the
Marketer has to create what is called a Buying Persona. A Buying Persona is based on
the customer profile data (Cordo, 2012) that includes Demographic, Psychographic and
Transitional data to better direct the content creation efforts and thus better direct
the marketing campaigns .
To obtain the need data strategies within Inbound Methodology can be used as: CAT
(call to action), landing pages, SEO, web forms, and others related to existing
customers as promotional actions leading to a web form validation.
The data by itself doesn’t represent nothing, it needs to be treated and processed, this
can be done, as I want to explore in my future studies by the use of Database Marketing
and Data Mining.

Research Methodology / Mestrado de Marketing / 2 of 22

Database Marketing can be define as:
Managing a computerized relational database, in real time, of comprehensive, up-to-date, relevant
data on customers, inquiries, prospects and suspects, to identify our most responsive customers
for the purpose of developing a high quality, long-standing relationship of repeat business by
developing predictive models which enable us to send desired messages at the right time in the
right form to the right people – all with the result of pleasing our customers, increasing our
response rate per marketing dollar, lowering our cost per order, building our business, and
increasing our profits (Blattberg, Kim, & Neslin, 2008).

Database Marketing by itself is of a tremendous importance for the creation of the

buying persona because it collects the so needed data and helps to maintain long-
standing relationships with the stakeholders, and more, it leads to the development
on predictive models that make possible to the Marketer to address the Marketing
campaign to the right people, at the right time as a result better directs his Marketing
efforts. Most of the analysis made within a databases is done by the use of high
technologic tools but the analysts makes the search for patterns manually. The use of
Data Mining algorithms is needed to make this search and give marketers and
automatic buying persona creation that would be an enormous benefit in the
definition of what kind of content to create and what kind of response to give the
prospect or client. Data Mining can be define as “the automated discovery of
‘interesting’ nonobvious patterns hidden in a database that have a high potential for
contributing to the bottom line ‘interesting’ relationships are those that could have
impact on strategy or tactics and ultimately on an organization’s objectives” (Parsons,
2009, p. 188). It´s known that larger companies have IT and Marketing working
together use the Data Mining process (Wehmeyer, 2005).
The study goal is the application of a conceptual model that could perform the
expected KDD and the customer profiling without human intervention. Before the
implementation of such a model I need to collect data from the involved parties,
meaning managers and IT developers. The data collection would be in the form of
interviews, more than raw data the personal insights of this experts could tune the
model and lead to its validation on three important dimensions:
a) Usability (People)
b) Business (Viability)
c) Technology (Feasibility)

Research Methodology / Mestrado de Marketing / 3 of 22

The main objective of this research is to Inquire about the representation that
managers have about the customer data acquisition leading to profiling.
The Specific objectives of this research is to perform a series of interviews with experts
on management/marketing to collect their personal insights about the theme.
• Managers and Marketers: Insights about their actual methodology to achieve
customer data, their difficulties and what should an automatic customer profile should
be.

Why a research on Automatic customer profile creation?

As a marketer and an inbound evangelist, the segmentation process as always been
a challenge. For a correct application of an inbound strategy we need to create a
Buying Persona. A Buying Persona is based on the customer profile data (Cordo,
2012) that includes Demographic, Psychographic and Transitional data. For
acquiring the so needed data there some technique’s that can be use such as CAT
(call to action), landing pages, SEO, web forms, and others related to existing
customers as promotional actions leading to a web form validation. Knowing this
and to get this also validated on the field, I wanted to know the manager´s
representation about customer data acquisition that eventually lead to a customer
profiling. For further studies and having validated this premise develop a method
for the implementation of the automatic customer profiling in small companies.

Research thematic and research methods

To fully understand the problematic addressed in this paper, we can discuss automated
customer profiling, its implementation and application. Trying in that way clarify the
range of possibilities and the gains efficiency for the organization and their customers.
Automated profiling needs data, and data processing to be an effective tool. To help
explore this domain and because this problematic has been little mentioned in the
literature. I tried to collect insights form experts in Management and Marketing to
create a framework based on an inquiry about the representation they have about
customer data acquisition leading to profiling.

Research Methodology / Mestrado de Marketing / 4 of 22

The research chosen for this paper was a qualitative study, based on semi-structured
interview, made to managers and marketers.

Theoretical Framework
Costa (2010) Talks about the shifting paradigm between traditional marketing and
inbound giving a fresh perspective on the benefits of this methodology namely the
effectiveness of the inbound techniques regarding the traditional, and the importance
of a customer-centric organization that wants to provide the best experience to their
customers.
Cordo (2012) Talks about on what is a Buying Persona, and what kind of data is kneed
to create it namely Demographics’, Psychographics’ and Transnational’s to better
direct the marketing efforts. The Buyer Persona creation and the Buying Journey are
core-elements for Inbound Marketing.
Blattberg et al. (2008) Give the definition on what is Database Marketing, namely by
identifying customers to develop high-quality and long-standing relationships that
would enable marketers the possibility to better direct their marketing efforts at the
right time to the right people, with the solo intention of delighting the customer and
making them brand ambassador, which is every marketer´s dream.
Parsons (2009, p. 188) Brings the definition of Data Mining, also known as KDD
(Knowledge Discovery in Databases) and its impact on strategy or tactics and the
organization´s objectives. Discovering patterns hidden in a Database and creating
cluster´s leading to the automated creation of a Buying Persona is the main goal on
this research and could lead to a better understanding of customers by small
businesses.
Wehmeyer (2005) Talks about that only large companies that have IT and Marketing
align use the Data Mining process, it´s something that I want to demystify.
Rajagopal (2011) Talks about the application of Customer Data Clustering using Data
Mining Techniques, in his papers he focus on outputting data regarding high-value and
high-risk customers, it’s not what is intended on my research but he testes his own
model using IBM I-miner technique, that will be used also by me the implementation
stage if the conceptual model is accepted.

Research Methodology / Mestrado de Marketing / 5 of 22

Method
The following presents the methodology behind this research. In the first part the
research structure and the methods are described. After the methods of data
gathering are presented.

Interview Structure
A qualitative study was chosen for conducting this research. The objective is to acquire
qualitative data that can be analysed to bring the most crucial factors in the
problematic discussed. This research uses deductive approach to data analyses. This
study will have his base on a theoretical framework created by the literature review.
The empirical study was based on interviews that were analysed using qualitative
based on the theory reviewed and the data output processed via NVIVO 10. The
primary data collection method is interviewing a manager and the data gathered is
analysed with qualitative methods.
As the interviews where semi-structured, the created script wasn't fully followed.
During the interview new themes emerged as new sets of questions regarding this new
themes. The interview can be divided in four main themes. The first theme is the
manager point of view on customer segmentation. The second theme is related to data
retention and customer segmentation. The third theme is about objectives and gaps
when profiling. Finally, the fourth theme is about other applications of profiling, this
theme emerged during the interview and a new concept, price profiling.

Gathering of empirical data.

A total of 10 Managers form different companies and areas of activity, meaning
business to business and business to consumer were contacted. Due to time session
and time constrains only one interview was made.
The interview was conducted face-to-face, with a Master in management with a
bachelor's degree in computing working as managers for an industrial company. The
references and transcripts were translated to English to preserve the integrity of
pervious work. The qualitative analyses on the researched data was conducted in four
steps using NVIVO 10: transcribing data; reading and generating categories, themes

Research Methodology / Mestrado de Marketing / 6 of 22

and patterns; interpreting finding and writing the report. Finding and transcriptions
can be found in Results.

Results

Theme I Customer Segmentation a Managers point of view

The following presents questions to the theme “Customer Segmentation a Managers
point of view” and answers given during the interview.

Customer segmentation it’s an important concept in this new Marketing Era, the
concept isn’t entirely new, but its application can appear different on Business to
Business or Business to Consumer approach. In this interview was asked the
interviewee to give is personal point of view on customer segmentation. The point of
view given was:” … It’s an important tool to try to direct the customers (…) It can be
used as a filter for only showing customers what they want and need (…) and not
unwanted things and making their experience unpleasant (…).”

For further development on this theme was important to know taking in account the
experience factor what were the key aspects on customer profiling, was asked the
interviewee to give is insight on this matter. The answer given was:” …the most
important aspect is to know the customer, know their preferences (…) customer´s want
a define product, and want us to do it, in a certain way (…) there is no space for
innovations (...).”

It was also important to know how these aspects evolved and if it was possible to have
some examples of this evolution, and those questions were made to the interviewee.
The answer given as: “…They evolved well enough (...) with the expansion of our
company to other markets and other kind of products we had to segment the clients by
type of product (…).”

Research Methodology / Mestrado de Marketing / 7 of 22

Another important aspect emerged during the interview, customer relationship. Was
asked the interviewee to describe customer relationship in company and if it was
possible to give some examples of this relationship. The answer given was:”…The
company where I work is the true cumulus of customization (…) It’s the client who
chooses the product he wants, says what graphics, what materials and sizes (…) we
provide what the customer really wants (…).”

Theme II Data Retention and Customer Segmentation

The following presents questions to the theme “Data Retention and Customer
Segmentation” and answers given during the interview.

Data Retention has an important role on the Customer Segmentation process, for
evolution the knowledge about the interviewee and is company, it was asked to the
interviewee if is company retains data from customers and prospects and why. The
interviewee answer was:” … Yes, it does (…) Not from prospect, from customer its does
but not enough (…) We don't have a CRM to manage that data (…) we are still in a
decision stage to see if we are going to use one, or just the company´s ERP (...).”
Linked to this questions were asked the interviewee with what objectives and if he
could give some examples of the data retention on is company. The interviewee
answer was:” … The main objective is to gather historical data (...)” and also gave as
example “…It´s the gathering of knowledge of historical data from customer and
knowing packaging evolution (...).”

The knowledge about type of retained data is vital for this research, for this matter was
asked the interviewee what kind of data was retain by the company. The answer given
was:” … Mostly transactional data, we have 14 years of data on-line (...).” the
interviewee also gave examples of its use “...Data is loaded in the customer´s file, and
in each product datasheet it appears as base data (...).”

Research Methodology / Mestrado de Marketing / 8 of 22

The main propose of this theme is Data retention and Customer profiling, was
important to know if the company of the interviewee had a Customer profiling process,
to that question the interviewee answered:” … We can call it profiling, it’s a price base
profiling (…).” Was also asked if the interviewee could give some insights into the
process development to what the interviewee answered: …” We have created a price
profile called "Maria da Triunfo" and it records it´s evolution, what materials are used
and what income it generates to the company (…).”

From data retention and the types of data, another set of question emerged, was asked
the interviewee if the company from the data retention made the projection of
Scenarios. The interviewee answer was:” … No, Not at this time (…).” Was also asked
why not? To what the interviewee answered: “…One of our project implementations
is the use of data mining for faults forecast, it’s trying to predict what will happen to
the product, in a given situation (…).”

To finish the topic, was asked the interviewee to give is point of view on and automated
process of customer profiling to what the interviewee answered:” … It would be an
important process that would lead to new developments in data treatment. In B2b it’s
a little more complicated. In B2c you can quickly gather data about a particular
customer while in B2b its more difficult (…).” and also gave some examples “…As an
example, my company as two purchasing managers with completely different
philosophies making it more complicated (…) To try reduce these problems, we treat
each manufacturing units as a given customer in a specific way. Each manufacturing
unit has their own treatment (…) It’s not the refinement that you mention, it’s not the
whole group that determines the conditions, the units do. It’s also important to know
the factory needs and wants. The means of delivery, payment, everything. We take
things to this extreme. We are doing segmentation and profiling, it’s not automatic,
it’s manual (...).”

Research Methodology / Mestrado de Marketing / 9 of 22

Theme III Objectives and Gaps when Customer Profiling
The following presents questions to the theme “Objectives and Gaps when Customer
Profiling” and answers given during the interview.

Was important to know the thoughts of the managers about what they think they will
get with Costumer Profiling, and that was the first question asked to the interviewee.
The interviewee answer was: “…Being closer to the customers, to their needs and
desires (...) One of the greatest dangers is offering a product to customer who doesn’t
want it, making him lose is time (…).”

To gain knowledge about the Gap experience that managers have when profiling is also
vital for this research and to future studies on this matter. Was asked the interviewee
if he experiences any gap within is current method of profiling customers. The
interviewee answer was: “…It´s difficult, normally all the existing data are known to
me, so I can say I have all the data I need for processing (…) but by other hand I do
need other kind of data, but I know they don’t exist, so if they don’t exist I don’t use
them (…).” The interviewee also gave some examples “…Data about salesmen visit to
customers (…) I need them to record the response of the customer to a determined
sample, how many orders come for that sample (…) All that work is not being done, or
done in a poor manner and I don’t have control over it (…).”

To finish the topic, was asked the interviewee if he thought that “Automated Profiling”
was something that only large companies that have IT and Marketing aligned could
have. The interviewee answer was: “… No! Everyone should have it operational (…)
and also gave some examples of its use …” It will relieve weight from the process
making it more agile (…) they will gain more knowledge about the customers and the
market to better direct our marketing efforts (…).”

Research Methodology / Mestrado de Marketing / 10 of 22

Theme IV other applications
The following presents questions to the theme “Other applications” and answers given
during the interview.

During the interview other possible areas of application of customer profiling emerged.
Was asked the interviewee if Customer Profiling could be used to determinate cost
orientation or product differentiation. The interviewee answer was:” … Yes, we have
customers were we can make an orientation to cost and others to differentiation (…).”
The interviewee also gave some examples “…when a customer arrives and ask for a
budget for a determined product, the budget must be done, making a determined
budget for that request and a price must be assigned for a price that gives a
determined margin. And that is normally done by the head director, commercial
director for his assistant (…) my project is to make it automated without human
intervention, and we going to make profiling (…).”

An interesting point emerged during this interview, price profiling. I wanted to know
the thoughts of the interviewee on having automated customer profiling creation and
automated price profiling and areas of application. The interviewee answer was:” …
It’s what we are going to do (...) on the next five months I’ll be creating the system that
automatically generates prices through profiling, what is missing is customer profiling.”
That lead to one final question, how are you thinking on doing it, to what the
interviewee answer:” I’m thinking on two ways or by data mining, because we have
many data generated, we have data on budgeting and prices. Or the pre-defined tables
were in the head director or his assistant loads the margin for the customer for a
defined product and the system automatically generates prices (...).”

Research Methodology / Mestrado de Marketing / 11 of 22

Findings
This note map was creating by intercepting the different answers and different
concepts presents during the interview

Figure 1 Concept Map Codification

Customer Segmentation is connected to the personal point of view of the manager and
to the aspect he thought were most important as the areas of application, but also
connects to another important concept, customer relationship.

Data Retention is connected to the type of data and to objectives of the data
retentions, to another aspect that emerged during the interview, scenarios projection.

Automated Customer Profiling is connected to the example given by interview, and

opening the book about the possibilities of this creation.

Objectives and Gaps is connected to what the manager thinks he will get out of
profiling, but also connects to what kind of gaps he perceives from daily operations. A
finally to another important topic the thought of the manager of the premise that only
large companies with IT and marketing align can have automated profiling.

Research Methodology / Mestrado de Marketing / 12 of 22

Discussion of the results

Theme I Customer Segmentation a Managers point of view

The interviewee first stated about Customer Segmentation that was an important tool
do direct the customers, and for showing only what is important don't making them
losing time, there for providing the best experience for him with the brand, and that´s
is supported in the literature based on Costa (2010) work were he talks about the
importance of a customer-centric organization that provides the best experience to
their customers. The interviewee goes further and according to his experiences stated
that the key aspects of customer segmentation are knowing the customer, their
preferences and letting the customer choose exactly how he wants the product, there
can be found theoretical support on the work of Cordo (2012) were he defines the
creation of Buying Personas profile that is based on the knowledge of the customer.
The interviewee also stated an important premise “There is no room for innovation”
clearly the interviewee is setting the standards for a B2b commitment that we cannot
experiment with customer relationship, is doing the right thing from the beginning, no
room for mistakes. About the evolution of the key aspects on customer segmentation
he gave his company example of a double segmentation stating “…with the expansion
of our company to other markets and other kind of products we had to segment the
clients by type of product (…).” Here he clearly means that their segmentation can
vary according to the market or product type, something common in B2b that operate
with different Marketing Mix´s.

Customer relationship is basilar stone in Inbound Methodology, the interviewee gave

some examples about how is maintained in is company, stated that a cumulus of
customization and that they provide what the customer really wants, is well known
that the future is max customization in small series, and if we provide what the
customer really want we are just giving them the best experience as cited by Costa
(2010) on his work.

Research Methodology / Mestrado de Marketing / 13 of 22

Theme II Data Retention and Customer Segmentation
Data Retention is vital for an effective Customer Segmentation, without data no
effective Segmentation can be done and according to Cordo (2012) a Buyer Persona is
based on Demographics, Psychographics and Transactional Data. Transactional is or
should be easily obtain from the company’s database, Demographics and
Psychographics should be collected from Customers and Prospect thru various
techniques well establish in inbound marketing. About this thematic the interviewee
stated they only collect data from customers and that was not enough, something the
theoretical support stated above corroborates.

The interviewee about the objectives behind data retention stated that they for the
gathering of historical data from customers and packaging evolution. The importance
of historical data is well supported in this document thru the work of Cordo (2012).
For future research was important to establish the type of data the company of the
interviewee retain, to that mater the interviewee stated transitional one with fourteen
years of data on-line, there is a distinct gap in this matter that I will address on the
conclusions related to the creation on predict models thru data use.

Data retention leading to customer profiling was already addressed in research with
the theoretical support base on the work of Cordo (2012) but I wanted to know if the
company of interviewee had a process to obtain it and how it was made. The result of
this question was that the interviewee stated that they had a somewhat new approach,
based in price profiling and not a Customer Profiling according to what was subjected
by Cordo (2012) a buying persona. It is known and has somewhat a theoretical support
by the definition of database marketing of Blattberg et al. (2008) that talks about the
creation of predictive models that could better direct the marketing efforts but also
help to generate scenarios. To that matter the interviewee stated that at this time they
don't use them, but they pretend to do so in the future thru another technique called
data mining for creating faults forecast and to predict what would happen to happen
to the product at a given situation.

Research Methodology / Mestrado de Marketing / 14 of 22

Automated Customer profiling, almost nothing has been written about this particular
topic, Rajagopal (2011) on is work talks about the application Customer Data Clustering
that can be seen as segmentation, but on his research he sets his focus on outputting
High-Value customer and High Risk customers. About this matter the interviewee
stated that would be an important process that could lead to new development in data
treatment but it would be a complicated application on B2b, he continued stated that
it´s a bit simpler on B2c that data from customers can be easily obtain and also talk
about the example of his own company and the fact that he has two managers leading
with this situation and both have different philosophies making its application even
harder. According to Cordo (2012) the gathering of data can be done if the right
strategy is implementation is made correctly.

Theme III Objectives and Gaps when Customer Profiling

About the manager’s expectation of Customer Profiling the interviewee stated that
being closer to customer, to their needs and desires was of most importance. Costa
(2010) work clearly corroborate the interviewee statement by introduction of a
customer-centric organization that wants to provide the best experience to their
customers. This corroboration also can be extended to the interviewee next statement
were he says that one of the biggest mistakes is offering a product to a customer who
doesn't want, making him lose time and a bad experience.

Its common knowledge that managers most of times have distinct perception of a gap
existence between what the data what to obtain thru profiling and the data they really
obtain. To the matter in hand the interviewee stated a curious point of view saying
that normally he had all the that he needed but he does need other set of data but he
knows that data doesn't exist so if the data does not exist he does not used it. And also
so stated examples of a gap presence, obtaining this data could have a vital impact on
strategy or tactics and even the organization objectives as stated by Parsons (2009)
and could lead to automated discovery of patters in the database and the creation of
models that could predict what would happen to a product or customer in a certain
time.

Research Methodology / Mestrado de Marketing / 15 of 22

Theme IV other applications
During this interviewee and somewhat diverging from the main topic,
The theme “Other applications” emerged giving birth to another set of question
regarding the use of Customer Profiling, and what were the managers thought about
its use on obtaining cost orientation or product differentiation. To the stated above
the interviewee said that it could be possible to obtain both and gave some examples
introducing me to what he called price profiling, and end it with an important
affirmation that his objective is to make it automatic, without human intervention. This
can be done as presented by Cordo (2012) work but not focus on customer but in
prices.

The interviewee unleashed an important new concept during the interview “Price
Profiling”. About the interviewee perspective on having automated customer profiling
creation and automated price profiling aligned he stated that was what is going to do
in the next five months. He will be creating the system that automatically generates
prices through profiling, what is missing is customer profiling.

The next thought was knowing how is pretending to do it, and the interviewee opened
the book stating he was thinking on two ways, the first data mining because of all the
data stored about budgeting and prices, this idea found theoretical support on the
definition of data mining of Parsons (2009, p. 188) and the second by the use of pre-
defined tables where the head director or his assistant loads the margin for the
customer for a defined product and the system automatically generates prices.

Research Methodology / Mestrado de Marketing / 16 of 22

Conclusion
It´s possible to conclude that for the managers Customer Segmentation is more than a
tool to direct the customer, is a process to obtain data that could lead to provide a
superb experience, leading to enchainment and creating a Brand Ambassador. This is
well documented by the interviewee on the importance of creating a customer-centric
organization, and it´s well establish within the Inbound Methodology. It´s also
something that I always defend that today we are lot selling goods or services we are
providing experiences. With the use of the internet the customer is a different
customer, it´s informed and knows the products, knows what kind of product he wants
to buy with what characteristics and even more, at what price. So it's the job of the
managers and marketers to provide what the customer wants, in the form he wants,
there for creating the best experience possible, or the competition will.
The interviewee talks about no room for innovation, I think he means that there’s no
room for mistakes, if we make a mistake we probably going to lose a customer, and its
well known that the cost of acquiring a new customer is four times the cost of
maintaining one, so for the good of the business, no mistakes.
The Customer Profiling could and should be practiced by all kind of companies,
Business to Business or Business to Consumer, it's the best form for acquiring data too
feed our databases. The interviewee gave some important statement, they use various
methods of segmentation, product or client. But again Profiling can be done adjusting
the profiling to the marketing-mix.

Customer relationship is important for the methodology that I want to use for
supporting Customer Profiling, the Inbound Methodology. Here the interviewee and
it’s my opinion also, does what is expected in this new era, focus on customization, and
provides the customer what he wants. But I think they provide even more, they provide
an experience, not just a solution. They bring the customer to the process and together
make the product and that´s called co-creation, it’s another set to delighting the
customer.

Research Methodology / Mestrado de Marketing / 17 of 22

Customer Segmentation is important, but its refinement to a Customer Profiling could
lead to considerable benefits for the companies because we were not leading only with
transactional data, we were also leading with psychographics and demographics and
could create buying persona profiles that better direct our marketing efforts based of
the customer expectations not only on transactional numbers. The interviewee talks
on data that's mostly important for the company like packaging evolution and
historical data of the transitions, but the relationship must give benefits to both parts.

Automated Customer profiling, is my focus for future research. About this subject the
interviewee agrees with my thoughts, that could lead to new development in data
treatment, but also gives is point of view about a difficult application on B2B. I disagree
Automated Profiling could be implemented in all companies based on the use of an
effective data retention, database marketing and Data Mining. If we can collect data
from customers and prospects we can start feeding our database and thru the use Data
Mining for finding repeated patterns and thru them start creating our profiles. It's a
continues process leading to the refining of this profiles and giving us a better
knowledge of the customer and by the use of data base marketing delivery the right
marketing message at the right person at the right time, increasing our sales
possibilities.

It’s well known that managers most of times have distinct perception of a gap existence
between what the data what to obtain thru profiling and the data they really obtain.
This is directly connected to the fact that most companies neglect some data types,
the interviewee stated that he knows some data is missing, but if he does not have it,
he doesn't use it. He mostly misses data from the relationship between salesmen and
customer, important data like what happens to the samples, did the customer made
an order from that samples, did I like it. This type of data could help on the creation of
a buying person, on better profiling the customer.

Research Methodology / Mestrado de Marketing / 18 of 22

The most important finding on this research in my point of view was something that I
didn't thought, price profiling. And if could have price profiling and customer profiling
aligned, this is creating an automated customer profiling that generates also and
automated price profile? That could lead to tremendous benefits, it definitively would
make the company gain time and without human intervention we could remove
mistakes from the equation. The interviewee a Manager with a Bachelor's degree in
Computing and a Master´s in business management stated that it could be done, by
the matter of fact is what a project that is implementing the price profile is already
done, customer profiling is the next set. He talked about the process is considering for
doing so thru the use of data mining technique’s.

For further reference, Customer Segmentation is vital for the organization. Companies
should not neglect the relationship they have and should always be focus on delighting
the customer, by providing the best experience. Companies should consider revising
their data retention methods and start using data from prospects, because in this new
Era it’s not only the customers that mater but also the non-customers. Companies
should also think on using all the data possible to better profile their customer, the
better understanding of the customer will lead to better sales. Automated profiling
could and should be considered as effective and money saving solution, because of the
removing of the human factor but also speeds up the process, and we know that time
is money. And finally automated price profiling and automated customer profiling in
and integrated solution could be a breakthrough for creating a 360º solution for small
companies. Thoughts of making such an integrated solution that could run behind a
company web-site could be my theses subject.

Research Methodology / Mestrado de Marketing / 19 of 22

References

Blattberg, R. C., Kim, B. D., & Neslin, S. A. (2008). Introduction. In R. C. Blattberg, B. D. Kim, & S. A. Neslin (Eds.),
Database marketing: analyzing and managing customers (pp. 3-12). New York: Springer
Cordo, J. (2012). Align S&M Teams. Sales & Service Excellence Essentials, 12(10), 4-4.
Costa, M. (2010). Inbound marketing (1 ed.). Brasil: Moysés Costa.
Parsons, E. (2009). New technologies of marketing research. In E. Parsons & P. Maclaran (Eds.), Contemporary
issues in marketing and consumer behaviour (pp. 177-196). Great Britain: Elsevier/Butterworth-
Heinemann.
Rajagopal, S. (2011). Customer data clustering using data mining technique. International Journal of Database
Management Systems, 3(4), 11.
Wehmeyer, K. (2005). Aligning IT and marketing The impact of database marketing and CRM. Journal of
Database Marketing & Customer Strategy Management, 12(3), 243-256.

Annex

Original interview scrip

Inquire about the representation that managers have about the customer data
acquisition leading to profiling.

Introduction
This interview will serve as support for an academic study carried in research
methodology for marketing master’s degree in the University institute of Maia.

The objectives of this interview is to Inquire about the representation that

managers have about the customer data acquisition leading to profiling.

The data collected will be of confidential and anonymous nature, the data will be
processed by computer application to conduct a qualitative research. The
respondent may have access to the final results of this research if this is his will.

I hereby request the authorization to carry out the recording of this interview, this
recording is extremely important because of the need for a posteriori transcription
of the interview.

Research Methodology / Mestrado de Marketing / 20 of 22

Start of the interview
Before we start this interview, I note that you can put in any doubt whenever there
is any and also when the question is not well understood.

Theme I Customer Segmentation a Managers point of view

1. Can you give me a personal point of view on Customer profiling?
2. Taking into account your past experiences as manager, for you, what are the key
aspects on customer profiling?
3. In what way did these aspects have evolved with your experience?
3.1. How did they evolved?
3.1.1. Can you give some examples?
3.2. Of the main aspects that previously enunciated, do you attaches particular
importance to some of them?

Theme II Data Retention and customer segmentation

4. Does your company retain data from customers or prospects?
If yes
4.1. Why does your company retain customer or prospects data?
4.1.2. With what objectives?
4.1.3. Can you give me some examples of this?
If not
4.2. Why doesn’t your company retain customer customers or prospects data?
5. Does your company have a customer profiling process?
If yes?
5.1. Can you give me some insight into the development of the whole process?
If not?
5.2. Why doesn't your company profile its customers?
6. As manager, what your point of view on an automated process of customer
profiling?

Research Methodology / Mestrado de Marketing / 21 of 22

 Theme III Objectives and Gaps when customer profiling
7. What you think you’ll get with customer profiling?
7.1. What are the main objectives of this profiling?
7.2. Can you give me some examples?
8. Do you experience any gap within your current method of profiling customers?
If yes?
8.1. Can you give me some examples of those Gaps?
If Not?
8.2. Why do you think not?
9. Do you think that "Automated profiling" is something that only large companies
that have IT and Marketing Aligned could have?

End of the interview

If the respondent thinks that some important information has not been mentioned
during this interview, it would be of much important if we still could include this
point.

I would like to inquire about the possibility of the respondent to read the transcript
of this interview in order to give an opinion on the reviews and to provide or
correct any errors or misunderstandings in the answers given.
If yes
What is the best way to send the transcript of the interview (in person, by mail,
etc.) as well as the deadlines for the delivery and collection of it?

I would like to thank you for taking part in this research, will be a key factor to
achieve the desired objectives.

Research Methodology / Mestrado de Marketing / 22 of 22

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