So why market inappropriate products to your customers?

Profile your customers to find out what they like, improve their experience and increase your ROI.

Data profiling involves some very sophisticated maths …. at the first mention of ‘regression analysis’ most eyes glaze over.  But at its heart it applies the fundamental principle that similar people buy similar products.

The idea is to identify the type of people most likely to buy your product – by seeing who has bought it in the past and then purchasing new data with the same characteristics.

In the ‘early days’ the basic technique might be applied through mailing to neighbours of current customers on the, now perhaps old fashioned, assumption that similar people live in similar streets.

Widespread use of the postcode helped geodemographic profiling develop along with the appearance of ACORN (A Classification Of Residential Neighbourhoods). Designed as a tool for government planning, it quickly became one of the first of many computer systems to divide the country up into different groups, based on census information.

Soon bright boffins developed ways of profiling individuals, not just households. A mass of data has subsequently been added to the geodemographic foundation and is relatively easy to access.