Eight Reasons Agencies Need a Strong Database Effort
A solid, up-to-date, well-managed database is the No. 1 factor in stimulating and maintaining business growth.
The word “marketing” may conjure up images of the fast-paced world of television advertising, a piece of direct mail that catches your attention, an interactive e-mail — even talk of demographics and campaigns. Yet it’s highly unlikely that the boring word “database” springs to mind.
From a marketing standpoint, however, the importance of a solid, up-to-date, well-managed database is the No. 1 factor in stimulating and maintaining business growth. After all, you can advertise all you want, but why bother if you don’t first manage the resulting information and keep track of the results from your advertising?
Think of it this way: A marketing tactic such as television advertising, direct mail or e-mail represents a house, but the database is the foundation. The tactic doesn’t stand for long — certainly not on a long term basis — without the foundation. Furthermore, if you don’t subsequently re-market to those same contacts, you may as well be burning your money in the first place.
To make matters more complicated, the changing environment has educated customers and prospects to not simply expect immediacy in their dealings; they demand relevancy. While immediacy requires you to maintain close contact, relevancy requires you to ensure the content of the advertising message is appropriate to the recipient.
In short, you need an intelligent approach to database management that not only enables you to maintain accurate information, but also provides multiple ways to separate groups, (customers, prospects, etc.), and further segment those groups appropriately so that each individual receives messaging that is relevant to his or her needs.
8 Reasons for Database
Following are eight good reasons why you need to get database efforts under way, with minimal delay.
Simple Steps
So what are some of the simple steps you can take to make data actionable and, most importantly, turn it into sales?
Get software fast: First, if you don’t have a good agency management system, then get one. There are a variety of software options to choose from, and each offers different benefits. Try to keep the system simple, but don’t give up robust performance for simplicity. It really comes to down to your needs. Ask your colleagues in the business what they would recommend and why. Take the time to do a good analysis, but make a decision quickly. If you don’t have a good data management system, you are falling behind already.
If you already have a good system, are you using it correctly? More often than not, we only use a fraction of the power of software systems. What pieces are you missing? Perhaps you need more education as to the system benefits. What do you really want it to achieve?
Build a customer profile: How can you retain your customers if you don’t know them? How do you find the right new ones if you don’t know what you’re looking for? You have to build a customer profile. That’s the type of customer who wants your stuff. Your best place to start is present customers. Who are they? Why do they buy from you? Where do they live? Does it matter? I’m sure you have more questions, so take a survey and you’ll get the picture.
It isn’t only about customers: Think about where your referrals come from — colleagues, friends and relatives, the office or store next door. You have to market to those individuals as well. Don’t forget that acquiring and capturing their data is important as well.
Capture the data: Last, but certainly not least, don’t take a step forward with any of these ideas until you can capture the data coming in. You have to be able to move new relationships forward and to maintain present ones. It won’t happen without constant attention to the data.
Using the data: When your data is in place, don’t waste any time getting your messaging out there electronically or otherwise. My recommendation is to first build a simple plan with tactics including e-mail marketing as your ultimate objective. But first imagine your data as the “jewels” of your agency, and start managing it correctly. Experience has shown that this approach will pay off in droves.