• image

Online Business: Customer Profiling for Success

Understand how to find and retain the most valuable customers with one of four courses in the Online Business Success program.

17,220 enrolled on this course

  • Duration

    4 weeks
  • Weekly study

    2 hours

When asked who their customer is, aspiring entrepreneurs often say “anyone”. This could not be further from the truth. This free online course will help you understand how you can use primary and secondary research, to identify the right customer and design engagement strategies to attract and retain them.

Understand the data and discover your customer

This course will introduce you to how, where and why to gather data and how to use it to create customer personas and marketing strategies.

We will help you understand how to develop market analysis strategies and show you how to develop a marketing strategy to guide you towards implementation.

By the end of the course, you will understand:

  • who your customer is;
  • how to use data to identify and profile your customer;
  • how to uncover the reasons why they buy;
  • and how to develop profiles and personas for your customer.

Get expert online business advice

This course is one of four in the Online Business Success program from RMIT University. On every course, you will be guided by academics from the College of Business and the Business Enterprise Unit. Plus you’ll hear from successful online entrepreneurs about how they targeted the most valuable customers for their business.

What topics will you cover?

  • The role demographic, psychographic and behavioural characteristics play when layered together to inform the market profile.
  • The level of involvement and associated risks applied to online customers that business owners will need to reduce.
  • Segmentation techniques to target the right customer base.
  • The opportunities that an online entrepreneur would need to identify to grow or enhance current target markets.
  • The comparison between difference types of research and the role each one plays together when developing a research plan.
  • The types of customer persona tools available when building a visual representation of a typical customer.
  • The distinction between the types of customer journeys, current and future state experience, and the service blueprint to inform the path to purchase.
  • The marketing attribution which identifies how the marketing messages contribute to the decision when buying a product or service.

Learning on this course

On every step of the course you can meet other learners, share your ideas and join in with active discussions in the comments.

What will you achieve?

By the end of the course, you‘ll be able to...

  • Identify who your customers/consumers are by analysing their characteristics, and prepare this information for further research
  • Compare the level of involvement and types of purchase, to predict the impact it may have on customer purchase behaviour
  • Apply primary and secondary research methods to create a market research plan which better identifies buyer's needs, motivations, and reasons to purchase specific products or services
  • Design and construct a customer journey map to describe the process a buyer takes when deciding upon a purchase, by generating customer personas

Who is the course for?

This course is targeted at learners who have a small business or are considering setting up an online business and wish to understand the principles of market analysis and customer profiling, through a series of examples, learning theory and activities.

Who will you learn with?

Brett Stavenuiter is an entrepreneur, business owner and business consultant with 25 years experience assisting over 5000 successful entrepreneurial business start ups in Australia and Indonesia.

Who developed the course?

RMIT University

Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) is a global university, with over 80,000 students, specialising in technology, design and enterprise.

  • Established

    1887
  • Location

    Melbourne, Australia
  • World ranking

    Top 210Source: QS World University Rankings 2022

Learning on FutureLearn

Your learning, your rules

  • Courses are split into weeks, activities, and steps to help you keep track of your learning
  • Learn through a mix of bite-sized videos, long- and short-form articles, audio, and practical activities
  • Stay motivated by using the Progress page to keep track of your step completion and assessment scores

Join a global classroom

  • Experience the power of social learning, and get inspired by an international network of learners
  • Share ideas with your peers and course educators on every step of the course
  • Join the conversation by reading, @ing, liking, bookmarking, and replying to comments from others

Map your progress

  • As you work through the course, use notifications and the Progress page to guide your learning
  • Whenever you’re ready, mark each step as complete, you’re in control
  • Complete 90% of course steps and all of the assessments to earn your certificate

Want to know more about learning on FutureLearn? Using FutureLearn

Join the conversation on social media

You can use the hashtag #FLRMITProfiling to talk about this course on social media.