Customer Profiles and Customer Journeys

Leverage existing customer data judiciously. Use data like demographics, psychographics,
behaviors, preferences, etc. to build foundational profiles and journeys. But be careful not to
make assumptions or use data in ways that could be discriminatory.

Supplement with market research. Conduct surveys, interviews, focus groups etc. to add
nuance and validation to your personas and journeys. But be transparent about how the data
will be used.

Include contextual insights. Map out influences, pain points, and emotions at each stage of the
journey to create empathy and deep understanding. This often requires qualitative research.

Co-create with customers. Invite customers to provide input, feedback and validation on draft
personas and journeys to ensure accuracy. Make it a collaborative process.

Consider accessibility needs. Ensure personas and journeys don't unintentionally exclude
people with disabilities or other access requirements. Proactively seek input to improve
inclusion.

Update continuously. Customer needs, behaviors and motivations evolve over time. Plan to
regularly review and update personas and journeys to keep them current.

Focus on value. Only collect and leverage the minimum data needed to create useful personas
and journeys that will inform business decisions and improve customer experience.

The key is balancing data-driven understanding with ethical, collaborative approaches centered
on delivering value for customers. Maintain transparency, provide choices, and avoid
assumptions.

AI can assist in creating customer profiles/personas and mapping journeys in a few key ways:

Sentiment analysis on customer surveys, reviews, social media, etc. can identify common
themes, emotions, pain points to inform persona motivations and needs.

Natural language processing can transcribe and analyze qualitative customer interviews to
supplement quantitative data.

Machine learning models can segment customers based on attributes and behaviors to identify
distinct groups for persona development.

Journey analytics tools can track and visualize common paths customers take across
touchpoints, informing typical journeys.
Propensity models can estimate the likelihood of customers to convert at certain touchpoints,
highlighting key moments of influence.

Chatbots and virtual assistants can interact with customers to gather feedback through
conversational interfaces.

Recommendation engines can suggest the next best actions in journeys, highlighting common
patterns.

The key is to use AI responsibly with human oversight. AI bias should be evaluated. And
customer privacy, transparency and agency is important. When used ethically, AI can unlock
insights at scale to better understand customers. But the human perspective is still crucial. AI
should augment personas and journey mapping, not drive it.

Here are some additional ways AI can augment customer persona development and journey
mapping:

AI-powered surveys can adapt questions based on responses, digging deeper into customer
motivations and needs.
Smart segmentation AI looks beyond basic demographics to find unexpected patterns and
clusters to build data-driven personas.

AI-enabled ethnographic research tools can analyze in-the-moment video, audio, and text
interactions with customers to uncover insights.
Natural language generation can synthesize findings from qualitative data into summary
descriptions for each persona.

Algorithmic personality modeling can infer likely personalities, communication styles, and values
to bring personas to life.

Predictive analytics can forecast future customer needs, motivations, and behaviors to make
personas forward-looking.

AI can identify gaps and inconsistencies in collected data to recommend additional data
collection to fill persona knowledge gaps.

Sentiment mapping uses geotagged social media data to understand location-based emotion
variations in the customer journey.

AI-powered testing and optimization tools can simulate and continually improve personas and
journey scenarios.
The key is using AI and human research efforts synergistically. AI reveals patterns while
humans provide context. Together they can rapidly iterate and enhance the depth and accuracy
of customer understanding at each stage of mapping personas and journeys.

Ideally you should do interviews, online surveys, conduct social media posts, engage with
customers through focus groups and landing pages and utilize consumer feedback in a number
of ways through strategic sampling, through ads, through events and by utilizing every and all
means possible through different marketing funnels to reduce costs.

It's possible to monetize all your assets (when there's a how there's a way). Whether that be
through factory tours, tax exemptions through donations or leasing of equipment / extra office
space being rented out. Figure out how to monetize these assets in a way that not only reduces
your costs but also markets your vision and mission statements. What I mean by the last point is
this example.

For instance you have a company like Theo Chocolate that makes premium chocolate bars and
other chocolate products and is very sustainably focused on procuring and managing the
highest quality standards across their supply chain in a movement called "bean to bar" so they
should actively monetize their factories by giving tours of how they are sustainability sourcing
chocolate. From the production system of how it's processed to where it's being sourced from to
how it's packaged and seeing the end product.

At the end of the tour they give a selection of free chocolates. These chocolates can be of
different textures, flavors, designs and cocoa percentages (80% vs 30%). This spreads their
educational message of chocolate sustainability, it allows them to monetize their factories and
spread awareness by utilizing word of mouth advertising, content creation on YouTube,
Instagram and TikTok and by taking advantage of social media to spread their message of
sustainability.

This can help build excitement around their chocolate sustainability movement and by utilizing
consumer feedback they can provide products and services that directly correlate to what the
consumers want whether that be chocolate with coffee, wine mixed in chocolate, chocolate
peanut butter bits etc.

Catchy jingles and slogans like 1-877 Cocoa 4 Kidz can be great marketing. Images that tell a
funny story like cats dangling from leaves, standing on branches while chocolate pods cover the
ground and dangle from leaves. Theo Chocolate therapy app. Free to use, can help treat
trauma, provide comfort, donation links included to promote certain movements (helping cocoa
farmers/sending kids to school). Images of cute puppies that look like chocolate balls.

In-app purchases, tiered subscription models, licensing agreements, unit sales, loyalty
programs, affiliate marketing, commissions, ad revenue, step up referrals, newsletters, blogs,
bundle deals & chocolate word of the day. These are all great revenue streams and marketing
ploys to take advantage of.
Promotions/discounts, strategic sampling, pop chocolate bubbles (can help you relax by
providing melatonin), chocolate puzzles, QR codes for interoperability of platforms,
sponsorships, endorsements, up and coming influencers, word of mouth advertising through
digital chocolate mazes & treasure hunts provided in the app.

Rewards/prizes (monetary & non-monetary), no ad experience you pay a separate

$15-$20/month fee. Courses (one time fees and subscription models), licensing of content &
videos (can be based on contractual agreements, fees, subscription models etc) provided to
educational institutions, businesses, governments, content creators etc.

NFTs (images/exclusive art, assets, merchandise, equipment, mainstream products, limited time
/ limited edition services/products, exclusive right to buy nostalgic products that may no longer
be available mainstream). Certain rewards, events etc. can be handed out and has a community
of loyal fans built around it which can be monetized in a whole array of different ways from
subscriptions to one time fees to license agreements & rental fees. Digital & or physical books
can be another asset built onto NFTs that can have royalties included in the contract. Royalties
can be earned through ownership over these NFTs whether it's digital art or books when they're
bought and sold on secondary markets and 2-5%+ of sales per transaction goes to the Original
NFT owner(s) whether that be an institution or a content creator who owns the rights to these
NFTs.

You can monetize and turn any asset or liabilities into a recurring revenue by taking advantage
of the right business model for each asset like factory tours being turned into a daily revenue
source, playgrounds which can be turned into daycares, educational content on "bean to bars"
can be licensed, sold and turned into cheap subscription courses and ads can be placed on this
content and this material can be posted cheaply on social media to expand viewership.

Cheap overseas labor can be taken advantage of while still maintaining a moderate level of
control over quality processes etc. If remote work is an option consider cheaper cost of living
areas where the taxes and prices are more favorable over HCOL areas. You could also be
unethical and consider whitewashing (promote charities & donations) and take advantage of the
cheapest labor possible but be discreet about this. Now back onto topic. Consider utilizing
specific store layouts (most popular in front/less popular in back), easy to navigate, specific
scents, complementary product marketing and bundle deals with discounts, design fronts and
imaging of different products monetized to their full capacity to help increase demand and lead
to higher inventory turnover.

The more motivated and happy your employees are with working at your company because of
challenging projects and collaborative competitive environments the more likely they are to find
fulfillment in the work they're doing. If their personal goals align with the mission and vision
statements of the company then they are more likely to stay loyal and take pay cuts and work
for cheaper salaries. Employee feedback surveys just like consumer feedback surveys can be
very useful in correcting bad Organizational Behavior and are extremely important in fixing bad
company culture.

Most affiliate marketing can be done through posting on your social media channels whether
that be from YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram. From your Websites/apps and from
emails and messages. Posting from your social media channels is free to do and it costs little to
no money. It can also be done from your businesses as well. Making everything as interoperable
and seamless as possible is the best way of getting traction because the easier it is for people
to move through your different channels the more likely they are to buy from you and this is
where marketing funnels come into use. QR codes can be great for this because they can be
designed, colored and look cool and put on anything that resembles your brand (can be a
physical or intangible good) while at the same time allows you to advertise your brand and
allows for the seamless integration of your different platforms to work together for relatively
cheap.

Consider B2C and B2B. You have 100s of different routes that you could take like mass email
marketing, personalization (very important for repeat business), cold calling, text messages,
direct mail, referrals, word of mouth advertising, strategic sampling through digital and retail
outlets, events, collaborations, blogs, newsletters, videos, social media, online forums &
apps/websites among many others. There are so many opportunities to find customers for
cheap you just have to know where to look & which platforms (B2C vs B2B) your customers are
more likely to use in order to strategically place your resources in and focus your concentration
in these areas to get larger reach within the market you're addressing.

You must consider TAM (total addressable market), SAM (serviceable addressable market), and
SOM (serviceable obtainable market). Then you must consider CRM (customer relationship
management). You won't be successful if you don't know who and what you're targeting and if
you don't keep records of all business communications between you and the client.
 Appendices:

https://www.gradient.works/blog/unlocking-account-coverage-tam-sam-som-market-segmentatio
n

https://keap.com/product/what-is-crm

https://www.salesforce.com/crm/what-is-crm/

https://keap.com/sales-automation/what-is-a-sales-pipeline

https://keap.com/business-success-blog/sales/crm/the-benefits-of-crm-software

https://keap.com/solutions/automation

https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/growth-marketing-and-sales/our-insights/the-value-of-gett
ing-personalization-right-or-wrong-is-multiplying

https://keap.com/small-business-growth-assessment

https://keap.com/business-success-blog/marketing/empathy-mapping