The aim of marketing is to know your customers so well, that when your prospects are confronted with your product, it fits them so exactly that it sells itself! This sort of sounds like personalization right? Right! To be able to effectively personalize your message you need to have a great database with information that you can work with.
The one key here, is to know your customers. We may feel that we know them very well…but does our database know them and do we have it working with marketing? Your CRM/database should tell us:
- Name and address
- Purchase and interaction data –
- What direct mail piece went and what was the frequency?
- How often did we talk to the customer after the direct mail went?
- Payment History
- Demographics
- Psychographics
- What are the customers needs and motivation to buy
There are demographic factors to every direct mail piece you send that should have customers likes/dislikes, industry type, # of employees, sales volume, branch, # of plants and age of business. Perhaps having a Profile Data card sent with your thank you letter after each sale (or maybe large sales if your product is inexpensive) asking several questions such as:
- Contact info, immediate supervisor, ask who makes purchasing decisions at their company, when is the next most likely time they will purchase, what type of purchase would it be, what current products that we sell do they currently have (list models and brands), etc. This information could help you to market correctly to the right people.
Segmentation
Once you have your customers segmented (this can be extremely detailed or not – depends on what type of life cycles you put toward the segments) you can begin targeting customers in a more focused manner and/or you can broaden your marketing efforts. Either way, you will understand more about your customers by the process of segmentation..
It's The Future Marketing 