Developing deep member profiles over time is one of the most valuable aspects of having your community. Below are four tips on how to leverage Sparq Profiling Variables as one of the many ways you can build this deep understanding of who your members are and what motivates them.
1) Know how profiling variables are different
Profiling Variables (PVs) allow you to flag questions – either before you ask the question or after you have the answer – that provide key information you want to use repetitively for analysis, data mining, and for filtering which members to communicate with. While these same tasks can be accomplished in Sparq with other question types, the value of PVs is their ability to help you organize and continually leverage the information you find most important about your members. Think of PVs as your ‘shortcut to favorites’.
Running a Survey Gizmo activity? You can now analyze this data by Profile Variables!
2) Don't go overboard
Profiling Variables can get addicting - everything you learn about members can be considered profile-worthy, right? This is where revisiting point #1 above is important. All closed-ended questions can be used to analyze by, sample by, and filter communications. You’ll only use some questions as key lenses to look at your community insight through. Those are the ones to promote to PVs. Start with a plan outlining which questions fit this description and how you want that set of questions to grow. Ask yourself “how critical is looking at my community by this question.” There’s no technical limit on the number of PVs you can have, but at some point they become a laundry list rather than a critical set of variables to manage your community.
3) Thought starters
So what should you make a PV? Every customer will have a unique set of questions that make up their Profiling Variables. That said, here are some questions to ask yourself about PVs to get your creative juices flowing on which ones will work best for your community and business needs:
- Is participation in your loyalty program a key lens for you?
- Are there segments of customers you use to analyze insight for product/service development or customer experience decisions?
- Are there different groups of your customers (e.g. Millennials) that you want to consistently message slightly differently to?
4) Grow over time
The great thing about communities is that you’re talking with the same group of members for an extended period of time. This allows you to understand the members you’re talking with in more detail than any ad-hoc research project could tell you. Continue to build off the invitation study Profiling Variables to gain a deeper understanding of your members. You’ll also gain member insight over time and will likely end up identifying PVs you never thought of.
