Detailed contact information for newsletter subscribers

I'm new to the email marketing and customer profiles in SS. Trying to build a solid foundation for my current marketing efforts, and I have a couple questions:

• Can FORM information be stored as CONTACT information? For example, I want to collect certain information from my email subscribers like their phone number, "in business for x years", preferred mode of communication but it doesn't look like that info can be stored to a CONTACT for email marketing purposes. Ideally, I want to use this information to better segment my audience so I can sell them relevant events and products.
  • Further, I want to set up an event that leads to a landing page where the attendee can give me some basic info about themselves and be signed up for a mailing list related to that specific event. That way they're on my mailing list and I can re-target them for future events and/or products.
• Does CUSTOMER information get stored as CONTACT information as well? If a customer buys a product from me and opts into my email list, is there a "duplicate" created in the Marketing area?