For those who have worked within a marketing environment before will recognise the KISS principle – which is an acronym for Keep It Simple Stupid.  Basically it means exactly what it says – just keep your messaging as simple as possible.

It is estimated that the average person is exposed to around 2000-3000 marketing messages per day.  At first that sounds ridiculous but then when you think about the media we are exposed to daily – TV, radio, magazines and newspapers, shop fronts, van signage, billboards, buses, clothing, websites, direct mail, phone apps, promotional merchandise, e-mails, logos etc  and you realise that it is probably quite accurate.   So, when the average person is constantly being bombarded with marketing messages, if your message is anything other than simple, it has no chance of cutting through the marketing “noise”!

You also have to bear in mind that the human race is made from a plethora of different personality types and intellects.  Some of us like lots of information, however the vast majority of us prefer to get to the crux, quickly and simply.  It is no coincidence that some of the most successful people in business over the last 50 years share a similar trait.  Richard Branson, Henry Ford, Charles Shwab, Bill Gates, Theo Paphitis, William Hewlett and Simon Woodruff (Yo Sushi) all share one very similar trait – they all suffer from dyslexia.  It is their determination to make things as simple to understand as possible – that has enable them to communicate more effectively, with clarity, with their client base.

So next time you are creating some form of marketing communication, please remember to KISS your customers!

2. Create a habit

3. Work out your averages

4. Nail the proposition

5. Control the environment

Below are this month’s top 5 marketing tips – simple tips to help you improve the effectiveness of your marketing.  If you would like to discuss these in any more detail with a marketing consultant please call 0113 2008766.

1. ‘What’ before ‘How’ – When I start dialogue with many companies they often want me to tell them how they should market themselves.  However, before we can even begin to look at the ‘How’, we need to take a step backwards and first understand ‘What’ it is the business is trying to achieve.  In order to do this effectively I take clients through a “Back to the Future” process where we start, in effect, at the end.  We look at where the business owner wants his business to look at, at some point in the future, usually 5 or 10 years time, and then work backwards.  By doing this we can outline what the company needs to do over the next 12 months in order to take it towards its ultimate goal.  Once we have a clear idea on what we need to achieve this year, we can break it down further into monthly and weekly targets and then take a look at how we are going to achieve it.  If you rush straight into the “how” without a clear idea of what it is you are trying to achieve – then how will you know if what you are doing is working?

2. Create a habit – By and large I work with entrepreneurial business owners.  What makes a business owner entrepreneurial is the self-driving energy that they feed off from new ideas.  Unfortunately, this is also what holds many entrepreneurs back as this continual buzz from new ideas distracts them from the core focus of what they should be doing.  Similarly, most marketing activity that the business needs to undertake often gets started with a wave of enthusiasm, but then fades away as they look for something new and exciting to do.  However, most marketing strategies will consist of a number of different tactical activities that need to be carried out, followed up and measured regularly.  Because the whole process thus becomes repetitive, the business owner loses interest – and then the marketing activity slows down and, ultimately, stops working.  To overcome this happening, make those key tasks a habit of your working week or day.  If your activity plan relies on social media activity on a regular basis or following up on direct mail campaigns – make sure that you set time aside (and the same time regularly) so that the activity becomes a habit.  Start to divide your weekly timetable into blocked out time of marketing activity.  After a few weeks you won’t even need to refer to the timetable because all of your activity will become habitual.  If you just can’t make it work – get some external help to make sure it happens.

3. Work out your averages – in the world of marketing, understanding averages is crucial.  Most businesses struggle with averages because they don’t feel an average client exists.  This doesn’t matter.  Although many believe that marketing is a creative industry – it is actually more mathematical than creative.  The whole field of marketing revolves around results – return on investment.  If this has not been achieved then your marketing activity has spectacularly failed – no matter how creative your communications were.  Results and returns are measured in numbers.  So in order to calculate whether a certain channel is worth pursuing we need to know the figures involved and whether the potential returns far outweigh the initial outlay.  Even if you only have very crude average figures, this is better than none at all.  For example, to work out your average annual client value, simple divide your sales turnover by the number of clients served.  Similarly if you want to know the average transaction value, divide your turnover by the number of individual orders (not clients).  If you feel that a couple of your largest clients are skewing your figures too much – just ignore them and leave their figures out of the analysis.  Until you understand the averages within your business, such as client lifetime profit value and enquiry conversion rates, then you are never going to be able to accurately forecast whether a specific marketing activity is likely to be profitable or not – which means you may waste a lot of money on activities that were never financially viable in the first place.

4. Nail the proposition – I know that this seems like the most obvious marketing tip ever but, believe me, there are plenty of SME businesses out there who still have not nailed exactly what their proposition is.  This is worrying because the proposition of what the business is offering, is the central core to all marketing activity.  Can you clearly communicate what your business does and offers to its clients in less than 25 words?  If you can’t then I suggest that you work on simplifying your business offering.  If you think about all the best brands in the world, or even locally to you, the one thing that they will all have in common is that they are excellent at marketing themselves, because they have a very simple and universally understood proposition.  I know it is an overused saying but “less really is more”.  Until you have absolutely nailed your proposition, your marketing activity will never generate its full profit potential.

5. Control the environment! – There is never a guarantee that any specific marketing activity is going to work.  This is because there are so many variables involved in the process and, ultimately, we are dealing with human beings making a decision – who are very difficult to predict.  Have you ever used the Google Adwords tool to look at the keyword searches that people are using to find your type of products and services?  It always amazes me what people type in to Google – things that would never have even crossed my mind.  Because marketing response rates are difficult to predict you need to make sure that you test and measure all activity within a controlled environment.  What do I mean by this?  Well imagine you placed an advert in the press and the response rate was very disappointing – there would be a clear temptation to, either, axe the specific advert, axe the publication or axe advertising completely from the marketing budget.  However why did the advert not work?  Was it because it was the wrong publication (target audience)?  Was it because it was the wrong day of the week or month of the year?  Was it because the advert headline didn’t grab enough attention?  Was the offer or message not filtering through? Was it because the call to action wasn’t clear enough? Did you actually get enough enquiries but your conversion rate was poor (problems in the process)?  If you don’t find out why the advert didn’t work – then you could make the same mistake again!  So in order to work out why the advert didn’t work, you will need to tweak things gradually in a controlled manner.  First, perhaps place the same advert in a different publication – does the response rate improve? Next, try the advert on a different day?  Then tweak the headline, then the perhaps the imagery, change the call of action?  If you change one thing at a time you can measure what difference each element makes – until you get to an advert which generates a great return on investment.  Don’t fall for the temptation to make wholesale changes after one disappointment.  Refine gradually.

J = Jelly…..what are you on about?  It sounds like a terrible way of finding a blog for a difficult letter of the alphabet.  However Jelly is in reference to a great business/marketing book called The Jelly Effect by Andy Bounds.

Jelly is, in effect, the unnecessary information we throw at people in most scenarios – whether we are in a sales meeting, networking, a presentation or in our everyday marketing material.  So how do we determine what information is worthwhile and what is “Jelly”.  It is actually not that difficult to identify.  Any information that we are firing at people that doesn’t explain the benefit of what our product or service does for them (i.e. what it leaves them with), is not relevant and is unnecessary.

As business owners and marketers we need to stop throwing a bucket of jelly at people and hoping that some of it sticks.  How more powerful would you marketing communications be if 100% of what you said was relevant to the recipient?

In the job that I do I end up looking at a lot of companies website – it is the first step for many in checking out a potential prospect, supplier or competitor.  How many times is “About Us” the first tab on the menu bar? It should be the last.  We are visiting a site to try and find out about what you can do for us, but first you insist on telling us all about you and how great you are.  How many years you have been in business, how big you are, how many staff you have, how many offices, who all your clients are etc.   It is a turn off and unnecessary information.  Just because you have over 200 staff doesn’t mean you are going to serve my needs any better.  In fact it could mean the opposite?

Only communicate what is relevant.  Less is more.  It can be very difficult, especially for a business owner, to a step back and decipher what really is relevant.  The only way you can really do this is to put yourself in the mind of the customer.  If you can’t do this then get someone in from outside of the business who will see everything completely objectively.  Alternatively buy a copy of the Jelly Effect and carry out the exercises within it.  It may not solve all of your problems but it will certainly make you more aware of the mistakes you are making!

Inbound Marketing is a term to explain a different way in marketing your business.  Historically marketing has very much been viewed as an outbound discipline, also known as “push marketing”.  In short what this means is a company proactively pushing a message out to a marketplace – quite often through channels such as advertising, exhibitions, PR, e-shots, direct mail or a commission driven sales team.  It is a scattergun “look at me” approach, often to a mass audience, where you may get lucky and secure some sales – but the chances are your return on investment won’t be too great.  Obviously the more targeted this outbound marketing is – the better response and return rates you will get.  However bearing in mind the average person is exposed to an average of around 2000-3000 outbound marketing messages per day – you have to cut through a hell of a lot of “marketing noise” to get your message heard.

Inbound marketing , also known as “pull marketing”, is centred around placing yourself in a position where prospects naturally come to you when they are actively in the market for your product or service.  Because they are ready to purchase, they are far more receptive to your messages and communications and so your conversion rates are far greater.  Your “marketing noise” is actively being seeked.  Surely all of us would like to be in this scenario?  Customers, ready to buy, actually contacting us and looking for us to solve their problem or need?   If we can’t convert these types of prospects there is something seriously wrong somewhere!

So Inbound marketing is all about being findable.  Key channels in mastering the art of being found are online and also building up a positive reputation that will enhance the natural word of mouth referrals you receive.

Taking a look at your online strategy, there are a number of components that all contribution to your inbound findability – search engine optimisation, blogging and social media activity.  All of these will lead an active prospect to your website.  It is then the job of your website to engage and communicate to a level that is going to make that prospect contact you for more information.  It is no good getting the first half right and driving lots of traffic to your site if your site then turns the hot lead cold.  Similarly there is little point having an awesome site if you are not getting the active prospect to find it.

Inbound/outbound and push/pull marketing is a conundrum that many marketers take the wrong option with.  Whatever industry you are in, the likelihood is that you will need a mix of both.  However more of your efforts should go into creating an inbound marketing strategy as it will be far more cost effective in the long run!

Hubspot?  What is Hubspot? Well it is actually a very natural follow on from last week’s blog about Google.  Hubspot is a company which specialises in inbound marketing – driving customers to enquire to you rather than you selling to prospects.

Hubspot offer a couple of useful free online tools which can give you an insight to how well your website is performing, from a technical perspective, and also how effective your online marketing is, in comparison to your competitors.  In effect it is a free resource to benchmark how you are performing and to highlight areas where you could improve things.

Take a look at the following:

http://websitegrader.com/

http://marketing.grader.com

http://tweet.grader.com/

These handy tools take a look at the structure of your site in the same way that Google would view it – so it looks at all the tagging, the number of incoming links of authority, the way you have titled pages and connected social media accounts and blogs.

Basically take a look at these sites and analyse your performance within a few seconds.  It may highlight a few areas that you can easily address to improve your online performance!  If you don’t know how to correct areas of concern you can subscribe to their service to help you, or any web designer/developer, search engine specialist or online marketer should be able to help you!

2. Data Holds the Key

3. Forecast Performance

4. Keep Abreast of Technology

5. Plug the Bucket!

Below are this month’s top 5 marketing tips – simple tips to help you improve the effectiveness of your marketing.  If you would like to discuss these in any more detail with a marketing consultant please call 0113 2008766.

1. Go Viral – What better way to spread your message across your target market than by letting them naturally spread the word amongst themselves?  You see, nobody like to be sold to, but people like to be told to!  If someone you know, like and trust has recommended a company or brand to you – you will attach much greater weight to that than an advertising message from the company itself.  Viral marketing works upon the same basis.  It is getting a message, advert, offer or brand in front of a target audience through creating content that people will want to share.  The boom in digital communications over the last 20 years has made viral communications much easier to spread virally across the planet in days, hours and even minutes.  Platforms such as social media channels, file sharing sites, mobile messaging and email has meant that viral marketing has become a valuable and cost effective tool in reaching a wide audience.  You need to spend money on creating the concept, but the actual media itself is free as people circulate the content.  A great example is this You Tube campaign by Tippex…. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ba1BqJ4S2M.  It is funny and engaging content which works virally as it is clever and unusual, but more importantly it makes sure that the product is well positioned in the campaign and will be remembered.  This is critical – if the product/brand is not an integral part of the campaign – it is pointless!  Have a think how your company could be circulated virally!  It doesn’t always need to be as clever or as expensive as this – it could be a very simple, yet addictive game, a funny video or a simple digital calendar for an event such as the Olympics or the Euro Championships.  If the content is good then they will be openly shared and can spread like wildfire.

2. Data Holds the Key – When I go in and conduct a marketing health check for a business, one of the first things I do is ascertain what sort of data the company holds.  The reason I do this is because data holds the key to unlock many problems that the company generally faces.  On a very basic level a customer database is key.  Ideally you will utilise a system which tracks all purchasing history as well.  Historic trends with regards to products, seasonality, spend and profitability often lead the way to the most profitable future strategies.  One good tip (which most companies do not do) is to track the customer type within their customer database.  What I mean by this is that if you have a few different products and services and deal with a variety of businesses or customer types then segment them – by industry, demographic, business type…whatever is the logical classification for your business.  The more detail in the data, the more powerful it can be!  The next step up from this is to get all of your prospect data within a system as well and track all enquiries that come into the business. If you have read my blogs before you will know the importance that I place on testing and measuring all marketing activity.  In order to test and measure effectively you need to start tracking everything.  Once you do this you can suddenly start to see how profitable (or unprofitable) specific marketing campaigns are.  In order to maximise the most out of your data a CRM system is required.  However tread with care, unless all of your staff are on board with the why and are behind the system, it could result in a spectacular expensive failure.  Databases and CRM’s are no different to the old saying about computers….if you put rubbish in, you will get rubbish out!

3. Forecast Performance – This seems quite an obvious tip but it always amazes me how many companies are plodding along on a weekly, monthly, yearly basis with no targets or forecasts for their business…they are merely just existing.  Unless you set clear targets and then forecast sales accordingly, how do you know if you are on target with where you want to get to (assuming you want to get somewhere)?  By analysing actual performance against forecasts you can quickly see where there is going to be potential areas of concern – whether this is cashflow, sales pipeline, capacity, stock etc.  On a basic level, create a spreadsheet and create a sales forecast for the year.  From the top-line sales figures you will then drill back into different areas which will have their own necessary forecast in order to contribute to that top-line figure.  One of the key areas that will feed into this is marketing, as your sales figures are a direct result of your marketing activity.  If, for example, your first quarter does not hit its forecast and you need your second quarter performance to increase by 25% on your initial forecast – then guess what? You are going to need your marketing activity to work harder to generate enough additional revenue to make up for the deficit.  You, therefore, will either need to generate more enquiries into the business, improve your conversion rate or get your average customer spend up.  Alternatively you can blindly hope that you get lucky and a big order drops.

4. Keep abreast of technology  – When I think back to when I started out as a marketing manager 16 years ago, the world we live in now has radically changed.  Back then the internet was a new phenomenon and no-one really knew how big it was going to become nor how to utilise it from a marketing perspective.  Would people really pay for things online? We have also seen an explosion in the penetration of mobile phones – it is rare to come across anyone under the age of 50 who does not own one today.  And where it was originally viewed as a phone, now it is a mobile communication portal with SMS, internet access, apps and social media channels all in one handset.   Who would have thought you could have your entire music or book collection on a pocket sized device?  Social media wasn’t even on the marketing manager’s radar 6 years ago and now it is the buzzword of the moment and everyone wants a piece of the action.  More recently we have cloud technology, QR codes, augmented reality and proximity marketing.  If you don’t know what all of these things are, then that is my point really.  They won’t all be relevant to marketing your business, but you need to at least be aware of them so that you can knowingly discount their value.  The danger is when one of these technological breakthroughs is the perfect platform for your business, but you are completely ignorant to the fact (whilst your competitor gets a first mover advantage). Believe it or not there are people even currently working on a “Smellovision” TV set – I know it seems a step too far but imagine an advert for Cadburys where a scent of chocolate fills the room.  Or even worse imagine you are watching an advert for Pampers.

5. Plug the bucket! – We all know that a leaky bucket is inefficient!  You have to fill it up with water a lot more times and you need to work much harder to achieve the same result.  If you just stopped for 5 minutes and plugged the hole then you would be able to work much more effectively.  It is a similar analogy to the two woodcutters who are having a competition.  The woodcutter who lost couldn’t believe it because he could hear the other woodcutter keep taking breaks as the chopping fell silent.  Afterwards he asked how he did it and the winning woodcutter informed him that he wasn’t taking breaks, he was sharpening his axe.  In marketing terms too many companies focus all their attentions on winning new customers…….usually at the detriment to their existing customers.  What is happening, like the leaky bucket, is that they are just continually replacing the customers that they have lost due to poor service, lack of attention, no communication etc.  Before you go on a big marketing push take a look at your customer churn.  How many customers on average do you lose per year?  Ask yourself why?  If you can identify the reason why and plug the hole, then the new customers that you add are going to overflow your bucket…….and you are going to need a bigger bucket!  Existing customers are also around 7 times less expensive to get the same value of business from than a brand new customer.  Remember that marketing doesn’t stop with the sale….that is only the start of a long relationship.

From nowhere Google has become an important word within the Marketers’ glossary of terms.  But is it really the be all and end all?  I have seen business owners obsess over being at the top of Google.  Is it really that important?  Well the answer is…………………it depends.

Like anything within the field of marketing, the importance of a channel largely depends on the following factors…….

• the objectives of the business
• the product or service that you supply
• the behaviour of your target market
• the financial metrics of the business

So what do I mean by all this?  Surely everyone should aim to be at the top of Google?  Well not necessarily.  Consider the following scenarios…..

• Company W is running at around 90% capacity and has a loyal customer base with high levels of repeat purchase.  Its objective is to reach capacity from its existing client base.
• Company X supplies a brand new product which is totally unique but fulfils a problem that consumers are not even aware that they have yet!
• Company Y targets the over 70’s market with a special car insurance policy for the elderly.
• Company Z’s product has a unit cost of £2.50 at a 20% margin, yet to be on the first page of Google is going to cost around £1500 per month and the estimated volume of traffic is 10,000 searches per month.

So I may have exaggerated some scenarios to make a point, but you can see that for all of the above examples being on page 1 of Google is not really going to help them.  If you are mathematically minded you may say that if Company Z converted 3000 sales out of the 10,000 searches then they would cover their costs?  But the point is they would not make a profit and they would need a high number of browsers first clicking on their site and then following up with a sale – way above Google averages.  A lot of pain for no gain!

However, don’t get me wrong, for many businesses (and in fact the majority of businesses) the power of understanding how Google works and being found online quickly and relevantly cannot be underestimated.  Some businesses have been built solely open an online presence.

Google is the 21^st Century’s answer to the Yellow Pages.  If you have a need and you don’t know anyone through personal experience (or recommendation) to fulfil that need then the vast majority of the population will search online…using Google as their search engine.  If you are not found on the first page, but 10 of your competitors are….you have just missed out on a potential enquiry.

Google, as a subject area, is very in depth and diverse and many 200+page books have been written on how to utilise Google within your marketing.  I will not attempt to cover off everything about Google but, very simply, you have three main key ways to appear on the first page of Google.  Through the natural search results, through Google Maps or through paid adverts.  To be honest it doesn’t matter which method you use, or even all three.  The key is that the money you invest into your website, search engine optimisation and cost-per-click adverts generates a positive return on investment.

Whatever you do (and I have seen this happen) don’t let vanity supersede common sense and end up investing thousands of pounds on being top of Google if it is not generating a positive return.  It is all very well being top – but if you website itself doesn’t work in converting browsers to buyers or enquirers, then it is pointless.  Google with care!

It is essential that any business owner or marketing manager understands the key financial metrics of their business, otherwise how on earth do you go about starting to understand how much you are willing in invest in marketing in order to attract an enquiry?

In order to make the right decisions these are the basic figures you need to know….

• Average gross profit margin % (you will need an accurate grasp on your cost bases here)
• Average transaction values within the business
• Average number of transactions per customer per year
• Average number of years a client stays a customer
• Enquiry conversion rate

OK, obviously the more detail you have, the more accurately you can measure specific campaigns and specific products and services.  However, bearing in mind most companies do not even track all of these elements, let alone know the figures, I am purely going to work on averages across the board.

The first four figures outlined above will enable you to start to calculate the average lifetime value of a client.  This is a critical figure to know for anyone who is serious about marketing their business.   If you don’t know this figure you are blindly stumbling in the dark.

This can be simply calculated by the following formula:

Avg Transaction Value  X  Avg Transactions Per year  X  Avg Number of Years  X  Avg Gross Profit margin                                                          = TOTAL LIFETIME CLIENT PROFIT VALUE

An even more accurate reflection can be calculated if you measure the average number of referrals a client makes over the course of the year.  However for simplicity purposes I am not going to include that figure in this example.

So now you know what a client is worth to your business, you can start to calculate how much you are willing to spend to gain a new one.  So if a client’s lifetime profit value is £500, are you willing to spend £100 on winning a new one? £200? £300? £400?  You see it all comes down to your business model and different people will see this differently.  Only you can make this judgement.

When you have settled on a figure on how much you are willing to spend to win a new customer, you then need to consider your conversion rates.  If your conversion rate is only 4% – i.e you only convert 1 in 25 enquiries into the business and you are willing to spend £300 on winning a new  customer then you know that a campaign that costs £1500 needs to generate 125 enquiries in order to secure 5 new clients.  Similarly you know that in order to break even on the campaign you need 75 enquiries generating 3 new clients.

Now I am not going to go into how you improve you conversion rates here because there are many different variable factors that contribute to this, such as the number of enquiries, quality of enquiries, price, sales process etc.  However,  if you don’t start testing and measuring campaigns you will have no idea what works and what doesn’t work……and if you don’t have a good grasp of the financial metrics of your business then how do you know if your marketing spend is generating a positive return on investment?  The simple answer is you don’t!

Exhibitions can provide an excellent way for you to reach your target audience cost effectively.  The key element to this is “target audience”.  First of all make sure that the visitor demographics for the show are bang in line with who you are trying to reach.  If not, it will be an expensive and tiring waste of time!  This information is always available from the exhibition media pack – either online or they will send you one upon request.  Many exhibitions will sell off last minute space at much reduced rates so it can often be beneficial to play the waiting game!  Also, when evaluating a show – ring round some of the previous year’s exhibitors to get a true insight into the quality of the event.

The downside to exhibitions is that you are often crammed into an exhibition hall with 100+ other suppliers, some of whom may well be your competitors!  There is going to be a lot of promotional “noise” at the event so you need to make sure that you stand out from the crowd.  Quite often the event itself will be seeding process of what will turn out to be a number of fruitful relationships.  Here are some key tips to follow in order to get the best return from your event!

1.  Set an Objective & Budget

It seems really obvious but many companies go into an event and don’t think through exactly what they want to get out of it.  Set some targets and goals and work out how much your budget is for the whole event (including accommodation, travel, stand extras, giveaways etc).  Once you have a budget and a target in terms of how many clients you need to generate (based on average transaction values) and good idea of your conversion rate then you are clear on how hard you need to WORK during the event.  Don’t just expect visitors to pile onto your stand.  Being there isn’t just enough – you need to entice and engage with them.

 2.  Select a Theme or Message

The most successful stands at exhibitions have a clear theme or message running through them.  Don’t just turn up and say “Hey this is us – aren’t we great”.  Once you know what your theme or core message is (which should be centered around a client benefit) you can then tailor everything so it ties in nicely with this theme.  This makes your message much stronger and memorable.

 3. Be different

Nearly every single exhibition stand will have some graphics and some form of giveaway available – whether it is a glass of champagne, a promotion pen, promotional confectionery, promo mug or an exhibition bag filled with goodies.  However, many visitors are hoarders who end up with bagfuls of free giveaways at the end of the event.  Remember that it is the follow up that is going to be key and your prospect has been exposed to 100+ brands in one day. If you can make your brand stand out from the crowd, through the on-stand experience and your branded giveaway and become memorable – this will make the follow up process much easier.

4. Follow up!

Just like with all marketing activity – the follow up is crucial.  Harvard Business School states that 80% of sales opportunities are lost purely because of not following up!  If you do points 1,2 & 3 correctly but then fail to follow up…it will prove to be an expensive waste of time.  Follow up promptly as well whilst you are still fresh in the prospects mind.  Why not grade your prospects? Because remember if you generate 200 leads there is a lot of work there to follow up with them all efficiently.   You could follow up your top grade prospects f within 5 days, next level within 10 days and bottom tier within 15 days.  It could be that some of your leads will just get added to a database (see last week’s blog) for now until they evolve a bit.

The database is a pivotal tool within the marketing manager’s, or business owner’s armoury.  It is core to maintaining the ongoing dialogue with a company’s customers, pipeline of prospects and target audience.  Yet it is staggering how many reasonable sized businesses that I go to see who still have no database or CRM system in place.  Now CRM is a much more advanced database system, but even a very simple contact management system is a start in ensuring that you are hitting the right audience with the right communications in both a timely and cost effective manner.

When people think about marketing , rightly or wrongly, they think about lead generation and attracting new customers.  In order to do this effectively you need to firstly decide who your core target audience/market(s) is going to be and then create a message that is going to resonate with them.  You may have 3 or 4 different target markets and the message to each one may be slightly different – so a clean, well sorted database will allow you to quickly and effectively segment your data so you are sending tailored messages to the right audiences.   I bang on about this quite a lot but “ONE SIZE DOES NOT FIT ALL”.  You can’t buy a general list of “companies trading in Yorkshire” and blanket market to them.  Well you can, but it won’t work – you need segmented data and market specific messages.  You will waste time and money in sending out a message that you believe has reached everyone but has in reality failed to reach the consciousness of anyone!

Another area which companies often overlook is to generate more value from their existing customer base.  It costs around 7 times more to win a new client than to extract the same value from an existing client.  The database is key in enabling you to analyse your customer’s purchasing patterns and spotting opportunities.  Wouldn’t it be great if you could, within a couple of clicks, pull up all previous clients of product X who have been inactive in over 12 months.  Why have they stopped purchasing?  Have they just forgotten about you? If you haven’t been in touch with them in this period then it is no surprise.

This is a just quick blog to hopefully try and raise awareness of how key a database is to a business.  It saves you time, money, significantly enhances the targeting of communications and allows you to understand the behaviour of your customers and the metrics of your business.  I have really only scratched the surface here…but if you are operating without a central database or CRM system , then you are not operating as effectively as you could be!