Database Marketing

Uncovering The Hidden Gold In Your Filing Cabinets.

You may be spending so much time worrying about where your next new customer is going to come from that your ignoring the most profitable asset you own – your customer database.

Your customer database is full of pre-qualified customers that are predisposed to spending money with you. They know your story, love your products (hopefully), and are very likely to be interested in the other things you have to offer. The problem is that you haven’t been keeping in touch with them regularly. Or, you have abused the relationship by sending them so many junk offers and navel-gazing sales pieces that they don’t pay attention anymore. Either way, you are missing a huge opportunity.

Clients that come to us for help managing and monetizing their database usually fall into one of three categories:

  • They don’t have a customer database.

  • They don’t use their customer database.

  • They have tried to leverage their database, with little success, using mass email services, canned newsletters, and frequent “coupon style” offers that are generic and boring.

Your customers are all different. Treat them that way.

One of the quickest ways to encourage your customers to hit the unsubscribe button is to treat them all the same. For one thing, you will probably want to talk to people that have never done business with you a little differently than the way you talk to customers that have been with you for years. Offers and incentives that may be very attractive for customers that do business with you frequently may be very different from those that appeal to people that only buy once a year.

Most businesses that try database marketing make the mistake of creating single campaigns and mass-mailing them to their entire list. This is not the most effective way to use the medium. Instead, you should segment your database in such a way that you can send customized messages to very specific customer niches. The more finely segmented your database is, the more targeted and relevant your communications will be, the greater the open rates will be, and the greater your ROI will be.

Want to create a special offer only for customers that have spent between $100-$250 with you in the past 6 months? You should be able to do that. Want to send a tutorial video out to people that have recently downloaded a product brochure? You should be able to do that too. Database segmentation makes this possible and it’s the difference between savvy email marketers and the do-it-yourselfers using web-based email services to hammer their entire customer list twice a week.

Newsletters and coupons aren’t the only answers.

You should be sending a monthly newsletter and out-of-this-world offers to your database – these things are a given and there’s definitely an art to doing it right. But to truly maximize your database marketing you should also be providing customized marketing sequences designed to educate your customers with the information they crave. It’s not about showing them the features of your newest bowling ball; it’s about teaching them to become better bowlers.

When you take the focus off of you and your company and place it squarely on your customers and their desires, you’ll be amazed at how quickly you can convert casual acquaintances into raving fans. You’ll also begin creating strong personal relationships that your competitors will be unable to breach.

The loneliest number in marketing.

Is 1.

In order to maximize the return on your database marketing initiatives, you never want to rely solely on one medium. Direct mail is a great tool. So is email. So is voice broadcasting. But if you truly want to dominate the marketplace you should be using use tools together in carefully planned sequences. Your database is the trunk of the tree, segmented lists are the branches, media delivery vehicles are the leaves.

Contact Media will show you how to build your database quickly and turn it into an on-demand revenue source. We’re going to show you strategies that are so far beyond what your competitors are doing that they’ll be scratching their heads trying to figure out how your growing your business so consistently without spending mind-numbing sums in traditional media.

Become an Insider

Sign up today to receive Contact Media’s FREE e-newsletter, The Contact Media Insider, packed with powerful and proven “insider secrets” to increase response rates, generate more leads, and turn your marketing into a profit center.

Your email address will never be shared, and you can opt-out at the touch of a button.