Progressive profiling

Progressive profiling is a marketing technique that allows you to gradually collect the necessary data about leads instead of gathering it all at once. It helps personalize user experience, improve conversion rates, and optimize buyer journey.

In this article, we'll uncover the benefits of progressive profiling, explain the way it works, and provide some effective tips to qualify your leads better and boost sales with this technique.

4 Benefits of Progressive Profiling

A web form, the main instrument for personal data collection, often causes irritation and resentment among leads, which is not surprising. They're asked to fill in a lot of details about their birth date, gender, occupation, industry, and so on while they are just in the awareness stage. They are confused and don't realize why they should share their personal information with a brand. This is when progressive profiling comes into play.

Progressive profiling is a smart approach to collecting data about leads. It allows marketers to get all the crucial information in small bits, which brings tangible benefits.

1. Empowering the process of qualifying leads. Brands should know to whom they're selling to be able to actually close some deals. By collecting data about leads, marketers can identify the ones who are ready to buy and those who need nurturing. Hence, they manage to be at the right time and in the right place with their offer.
2. Speeding up the buyer's journey. Customer journey depicts all the stages your leads go through, from getting to know your brand to purchasing. You will be able to provide an individual approach that all customers appreciate if you know more about their needs, wants, and pain points.
3. Improving customer experience. When exploring your brand's benefits, leads can face difficulties that may prevent them from realizing how to make the best of your product. Knowing these issues, you can provide them with educational content right when they need it, resulting in a better customer experience.
4. Boosting sales. People choose brands that care about their customer experience and provide personalized offers. Progressive profiling allows you to reach warm and hot leads whenever they're ready to interact with your brand and craft targeted messages for each audience segment.

Now that you know the opportunities of progressive profiling, it's time to discuss how it works.

How does progressive profiling work?

Unlike traditional forms that ask every site visitor to fill in lots of fields, this marketing technique implies creating dynamic forms based on certain conditions. Each lead sees a form with different fields based on their previous interactions with a company. This way, users share their personal data step by step when they move down the sales funnel.

Before progressive profiling, marketers used to create many different forms based on a user's sales funnel stage, intentions, and preferred content. Now there's no need for this time-consuming task.

For example, if a user visits your site for the first time, they're allowed to download a basic checklist in exchange for their name and email address. When this user revisits your site, they see a dynamic form that shows different fields due to cookie tracking. This time, leads are offered to get a more valuable piece of content in exchange for their other personal info.

If a user is already familiar with your brand, you can offer them to see a high-quality webinar so that they can check out your services' benefits. In return, you can ask for more data, like their industry or occupation. The next time this user visits your site, they turn into a hot lead that is highly interested in your product. Offer them a how-to guide or demo video on using your services. This may be a final push they need to make a purchase. Offer them to share their phone number or any other necessary data you can use to convert this lead into a client.

So, this is the way progressive profiling works. To create dynamic forms based on conditions, you need to use a platform like HubSpot, WPForms, or JotForm.

In the last section, we will share some effective tips for you to make the most out of this marketing technique.

Progressive Profiling Best Practices

There's no unique formula that will allow you to create a successful form that will convert 100% of site visitors into clients. Still, there are some issues you should take into account when considering progressive profiling.

1. Ask only important questions. Make sure that you do need all the data you want to receive. Users are careful about sharing personal information, so if they have no idea why you need it, they'll stop providing it. Before adding any additional fields to your form, think about how you will use this data in the future, and ensure it makes sense.
2. Think carefully about the logic behind your questions. Start with more general and basic questions. Once you determine your leads' buyer journey and sales funnel stage, make the necessary changes. Make sure you provide enough value in exchange for their personal data. For example, offering a basic checklist for a lead's phone number might not be a fair exchange, which can make your strategy fail. People should receive as much as they give.
3. Implement progressive profiling techniques into your email strategy. Welcoming new users with an onboarding email series is a great chance to let them fill in your form. Inform subscribers about the benefits they will get if they share their personal data with your company, and provide a link to their personal account where they can answer some questions.
4. Keep all the data in a CRM system. Make sure that you keep a record of all the data, for example, using a CRM system. LIKE.TG's CRM allows you to create a card for each lead, keep all the information about every customer in one place, see the history of interactions, and contact each lead via several channels when needed. This way, you can access all your valuable data at any time.

Congrats, now you know about the benefits of progressive profiling, the way it works, and how to use it effectively.