Imagine you need to buy a new laptop for yourself and all you want is to watch DVDs and connect to the Internet for regular surfing and mainly for fun or to look for information and possibly online buying. What happens if the vendor you meet at the shop rattles on about OS features and details about the latest microprocessors etc.?
Imagine you need to buy a new laptop for yourself and all you want is to watch DVDs and connect to the Internet for regular surfing and mainly for fun or to look for information and possibly online buying. What happens if the vendor you meet at the shop rattles on about OS features and details about the latest microprocessors etc.? You would be put off by this behavior and get cold feet about your purchase. In the best case you find another vendor or decide to make the a more or less random choice.
Conversely, if you are a geek or need a computer with certain characteristics for professional use you would not be happy with approximate and incomplete answers from a generic vendor who barely knows what he is selling. You may end up going to another store hoping for find more competence.
Consciously or intuitively, good salespersons know how to adapt their style to the prospects they have in front. A highly converting website does the same: we call the various propsects of a company 'personas' and the exercise of creating the right personas for each company as 'profiling'.
Profiling is a critical step in the design of a converting website, but rarely implemented even when the company knows its client base and has a well-established marketing department. This represents a golden opportunity for those marketers who want to take the time to go beyond the 'nice design' goal.