How progressive profiling can improve user experience

We know you want to find out as much as possible about your prospects, leads, and customers. On the other hand, you wouldn't want to annoy them with a massive form that has to be filled in. So it will work better if questions are spreaded over time.

It is like when you make a new friend: you get to know a bit more about them each time you meet — rather than having a two-hour conversation the first time in. As days go by, you start to learn all aspects regarding this person. You see their favorite places and foods, hear about their perspectives on society, and even observe how they prefer to be treated by you.

Consequently, you can identify the best approach to talk to them about any specific subject. The relationships with your prospects, leads, and customers should work the same way.

Types of progressive profiling

Taking this into account, these days many marketers use progressive profiling techniques. It allows them to collect critical bits of information about their public over time. Let's dive into how you can reap a multitude of benefits from click maps, navigation data, and short forms.

Direct progressive profiling with short forms

Building a user profile through short forms works out like this: the first time someone visits your website, a pop-up with a short form comes out. The new user is supposed to fill in the blanks with their name and email. The second time they are browsing through the page, a new pop-up appears. Now you are asking them to fill it with their address and phone number. The third time they hit your site, you probably will have shown them more about your product's core value. Now they're more likely to tell you about their job and the company they work for.

Creating these forms that appear during the user's session is easier than it sounds. Many tools these days offer practical and intuitive options so that everything is up and running in just a few seconds. Some of them even include template options with suggestions of what questions you should ask and in which order you should do it.

But remember to ask yourself about what data is crucial for you to base your marketing actions and campaigns on.

Indirect progressive profiling with click maps

A second way of iteratively strengthening the data in your leads is by mapping their clicks. It allows you to identify their interest in specific campaigns, products, or services. This information may serve you as a guide for what you should show them to better meet their needs through each step of the buying journey.

Indirect progressive profiling with anonymous tracking

As GDPR sets high levels of restrictions on collecting and using personal data, some marketers are struggling to know more about each person in their audience.

But not getting to build a profile on a known user shouldn't mean you can't fill in the blanks in anonymous profiles. By doing that, you reduce the amount of genuinely unknown users.

That means even if you don't know these folks' emails and names, you can still identify implicit contextual data. You can use all of this in real-time to influence messaging and targeting.

Benefits of doing progressive profiling

The benefits of using progressive profiling techniques are numerous. Therefore, we highlight some of them as follows.

Increasing in conversion and retention rates

Users who face extensive forms to sign up on a website are very inclined to close it. Or worse, sometimes they even get irritated and never come back again.

Offering non-intrusive solutions to enrich their profiles means many more of them will be converted into leads. In addition, personalizing the user experience makes the time they spend in your brand's universe much more pleasant. This, of course, means walking towards better retention rates.

Turning leads into MQLs and SQLs

Nurturing and qualifying leads has never been such an assertive step in the funnel. Specific aspects or actions captured from users demonstrate the level of interest or knowledge they have on your services.

After that, you get to score your leads and define which ones are sufficiently qualified for more incisive approaches.

Furthermore, from the large amount of information gathered through progressive profiling, marketers can find trends amongst their leads' behavior. That makes it simple for them to predict what actions they should drive specifically for each segmentation group.

Improving and personalizing the user experience during sessions

Keeping customers engaged highly depends on how pleasant their experience is during a session. By personalizing what pieces of content to show a user, you grant a more tailored navigation through your page. Progressive profiling gives you the means to identify intent and preferences in real-time as part of this personalization strategy.

Start building holistic views of each of your customers now

Maybe, as you read this blog post, users might be navigating through your website. What if they face an extensive form and ask themselves, "Why do they need to know all of this?"? If this sounds like a possible scenario, it means that it's time for you to find out how to make the liaison with customers as frictionless as possible.

Using progressive profiling techniques means that by the fourth or fifth time the user comes in, they may have given you decisive pieces of information. That’s the best way to improve communication and show them what they truly seek. And all of this in a subtle way. So why offer an ordinary experience when you can transform it by building trust and openness to dialogue?

If you also want to enjoy the benefits of progressive profiling in your strategy and start offering personalized content to your audience, create your free account and explore our platform.