Managing and Using Information to Grow an Agency

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 campaigns?

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 regardless of whether they are old or new, 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 messages relevant to his or her needs. Only then will you be ready to implement the marketing tactics focused on customer retention and growth.

Following are eight good reasons why you need to get database efforts under way, with minimal delay.

Generate cross purchases: Nothing builds customer relationships more than having them purchase more than one product or service. The deeper products penetrate customers’ consciousness, the longer the relationship. Data is the only thing that will help you understand your customers’ present buying habits and what other products and services you should present them with.

Prevent customer loss: It happens to the best of us … no matter how hard you try, someone will leave you at some point. But with the cost of acquisition being so high, you can at least try to prevent this terrible occurrence. Data will enable you to see what turned people off — and how to turn some of them on again.

Increase the spend level: If a customer is staying at a particular level of spending, you only have yourself to blame. How do you move the spend level up? Short of begging for more, what can you do to make this happen? And what information do you need to know to initiate this process? Without data you’ll go nowhere fast.

Trade up to a premium level: Most businesses with levels of service typically find their customers migrate to a particular service, and there is a minimum amount of usage of the premium one. How do you keep trading them up? What will it take? Keeping track of customer information and the results of other marketing activities will generate answers.

Market to “inactives:” Every company has them … they’re the clients who left for another offer. Have you stopped marketing to them? Just because customers leave doesn’t mean they’ve stopped buying your products or services. They could still come back, but where is the data to approach them again? Do you want to re-market to them all? You might not want some of them back, and it may be vital to recapture others.

Relevant messaging: Now that I live in the West, it always amuses me to see those holiday commercials showing people in snow, or receiving a catalog of winter merchandise that I can’t wear on the beach. The point is advertising should be relevant or it will be overlooked. But only an understanding and ability to use your data will enable you to achieve that important goal.

Say “thank you:” It’s old-fashioned, but saying “welcome” to a new customer or “thank you” to a present one never goes astray. Such pleasantries can also stimulate a new conversation about something else the customer should be buying. Capture the moment by correctly capturing the data. Initiate a program that “shadows” a customer from the first moment. Without data, however, this would be impossible.

Make your presence felt: So you think this customer relationship is for life? Think again. Unfortunately, you’re only as good as your last performance. Even if that isn’t the case, if you act accordingly, you’ll retain more customers. But you have to use data to continue to brand a relevant message over and over again.

So what are some of the simple steps you can take to make data actionable and, most importantly, turn it into immediate or forecasted 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. Listen to their recommendations, and review the field. 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 a present customer. Who are they? Why do they buy from you? Where do they live? Does it matter? I’m sure you have many 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 just have to be in a position 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.