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Let Your Database Drive Your Marketing Efforts – Start With a Company Database Evaluation

Bylori

Database marketing is a powerful and effective way to generate new leads while promoting brand loyalty and increasing sales to existing customers.

When you rely on database driven marketing, you use your existing sources of data to provide extremely valuable information on your customers and their preferences. Converting raw data from your database into actionable information can guide your marketing efforts, new product development and changes to existing products. This process is much easier when you conduct a professional evaluation to reveal useful material within your database.

Sources of database information

Aside from your enterprise CRM system, you may be able to acquire customer information from sources such as:

  • Customer surveys
  • Comment cards
  • Website requests
  • Warranty information
  • Trade show contacts
  • Personal interviews

One easy way to add information to your customer database: Ask for it!

  • Ask your customers for information you can use to better serve them.
  • Ask them what they would like to see changed, improved or removed from your products.
  • Ask why they bought your product instead of a competitor’s product.
  • Ask if they’d be willing to recommend your product to others.
  • Ask for demographic and lifestyle information that would be relevant to your marketing or to creating new products and services.

When you’re in the process of mining information from your clientele, remember that you’re not conducting an interrogation. Be mindful of your customer’s reactions to your questions and don’t push them beyond their comfort level.

Elements of an effective evaluation for database driven marketing

A professional database evaluation will allow experts in database structure, compilation and usage the opportunity to assess your company database and see if it’s being used to the fullest. An evaluation will reveal critical information on your existing customers and will let an expert source assist you with:

  • Targeting receptive potential customers with appealing and relevant marketing messages
  • Calculating customer retention rates
  • Establishing goals for lead generation and business growth
  • Identifying areas where database use and customer information acquisition can be improved
  • Recommending new marketing strategies or changes to existing marketing techniques
  • Designing intelligent and effective marketing campaigns and procedures
  • Finding and communicating with previous customers who could still be a source of revenue, both as purchasers and as sources of new customer leads

Does your company database contain the right kind of information to support your database driven marketing?

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