Tony Nicholls
The popular modern-day maxim regarding ‘content being king’ is something that needs to be brought in to question in our opinion, especially at the mention of that singular word beginning with D; Data.
Data, both quantitative and qualitative, if processed in the right way, has the potential to add infinite value to companies of any size or sector. Customer data in particular should be prized and used more than any other. Basics, such as learning how many people come in to your store or to your website, how long they stay, where they’ve come from, and what they like for example, can be of huge benefit. With this simple data alone, you can target customers who have dropped off and reward those who are using more regularly. You can also serve bespoke offers to those who like one product or service much more than another, and in turn, make them feel appreciated which has been proven to increase brand loyalty and customer retention.
The more you learn, the more you can serve too. If, for example, you know their age, sex, location or hobbies then, well, things start to get even more interesting. You can present location specific offerings or discounts and begin incentivising those customers who like one particular product to become ambassadors; start spreading the word on your behalf, telling friends, family and their social contacts what a great thing your company is doing.
Data also allows for analysis of two very important factors in business:
1) Observing how often a customer uses / purchases
2) How much they spend each time
And once you know these two facts, you can begin planning on ways to increase both.
With this data in hand, it’s also much easier to increase interactions with customers, clients and sales prospects via a number of different CRM systems. You can organise and structure communications in a way that is impossible without the core data you have collected.
The JP Marketing Blog recently listed four key reasons for integrating customer data with CRM systems, and seems we agree with them, we thought we’d share these with you.
“Identify – identifying different behaviours and buying patterns in different groups of customers means you can sub-group your email lists and ensure that say, men and women get marketing communications that are more useful and interesting to the recipient.”
“Personalisation – you should be aiming to make customers feel valued. It isn’t just about saying “Hi Dave” as a salutation in an email, it could be about seeing what customers have looked at and bought before, again, being useful to them. Online fashion and home ‘catalogue’ store ‘Very’, sends customers emails to remind them of items that they have spent a long time looking at or have looked at many times without purchasing.”
“Flexibility – knowing what customers have bought means you can be more flexible with your campaigns e.g. if you are promoting a particular product you could ensure that a customer doesn’t receive communications about a product they have already purchased which could affect how relevant customers see your emails to be, which ultimately affects your credibility.”
“Relevancy – irrelevant contact from companies waters down impact upon a customer. Holding information on customers’ means that you can avoid being irrelevant and having your communications routinely ignored or having customers unsubscribe from your mailing list”
As companies continually try and stay one step ahead of the game, data and CRM activity (or thereby lack of) will leave some companies eating others dust. Full programmes and plans as to how to carry out such activity are very company / industry specific, but one thing is for sure; if you don’t begin to look at either now, you, and your company, will no doubt be left behind.
Shaz Manelli
