In spite of having smaller budgets and infrastructures than their bigger cousins, marketers in small to mid-sized businesses face nearly identical customer data management challenges. They must effectively identify their best customers and prospects, and deliver compelling marketing messages. Additionally, they are increasingly responsible for demonstrating measurable return on investment (ROI) for the finite dollars they have to spend.
What follows are the most critical steps to help cost-conscious small to medium sized marketers get the most from customer data, whether their company’s revenue is $2 million or $20 million. Each process can grow as needs expand.
1. Compile a customer database. Numerous tools are available, at virtually every price point. Include as much relevant data as you can to support and grow the customer relationship — and be able to state to the customer how such data are used. A typical baseline for consumer data includes name, address, e-mail address, phone number and purchase history. If marketing to businesses, include job titles and company names and locations if at all possible.
2. Clean the data regularly. Marketers using outdated contact information risk wasting money by mailing or calling people who are not there. Additionally, sending messages to the wrong people weakens a brand, and can annoy them. There are many services available that remove duplicate contacts from databases (de-dupe), as well as combine and verify nearly identical records while removing outdated contact information (merge/purge). Such services, for example, enable marketers to identify multiple buyers within a single household or business, and avoid sending multiple messages to the same location.
3. Improve the data whenever possible. Most data services and processing providers also offer additional capabilities to help eliminate wasted mail, reduce postal costs and respect consumer preferences and privacy. Some providers even offer demographic data to help marketers build more robust customer segments, and also prospect lists sorted by key demographics. This information enables more refined targeting of messages, which ultimately improves the return on every message sent.
4. Analyze the data carefully. Common demographics help to identify the most valuable prospect lists, and to profile best customers. Where do the customers come from? What do they buy? How much do they spend, and how often? Accurate contact and transaction data shed light on the answers, which enable marketers to better identify and understand their best customers and prospects, and improve customer value.
5. Communicate through multiple channels. Talk to your customers using direct mail, targeted telemarketing, your Web site, or better yet, targeted opt-in e-mail. The e-mail channel offers real efficiencies and lower investment costs when customers have opted-in for this type of communication. Remember, even in smaller organizations developing a clear investment strategy for building relationships and growing customer satisfaction may be a key to success.
6. Measure the response. By simply tracking response to any outbound communication it becomes easier to understand how a marketing channel or offer affects the bottom line. Even the most basic reporting, when applied to a customer database, provides insight into the value of marketing and begins to answer the demand for measured results, enabling a business to refine its future efforts accordingly.
Rick Sloan is vice president, strategic data services, for Harte-Hanks Inc., San Antonio, TX.
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