Earn more money with DB marketing - Part 1
Posted 01-30-2009 at 02:46 PM by awesometbn
Tags autoresponder, crm, kotler
To identify prospects
Unless you are satisfied with spending $3 million dollars for 30 seconds of television time during the 2009 Super Bowl XLIII in Tampa Bay, let's stay away from the mass marketing approach. Instead, dedicate your marketing budget towards a more focused effort of identifying your potential customers. What usually happens is you generate sales leads by advertising your product or service to a specific group of the mass population (to your target market, not mass marketing). The ad should have a response feature such as a telephone number, or website link, or email reply form. Those responses can be used to create your first database. From that point, you or your dedicated sales team will review the data collected, and figure out how to follow up with each person in an effort to convert them into paying customers.
But that's just one method, because sometimes you might buy a mailing list or prospect list to start with. So you already have the data, now you need to use it wisely. Your job is to sort and update the data until you find your willing customers. To help with this sales effort, which is a big undertaking for any sized company, you can try to automate as much of the process as possible or you can outsource the work.
For automation, think of email autoresponders that are timed to send out routine and necessary information to your prospective customers. Some autoresponders work by actually replying to email that is sent to them, or they can be based on a timer (wait 1 day, 1 week, or another interval) before sending the next piece of information in a sequence. The buzzword surrounding this concept in blogs and member websites is called drip feed, also known as incremental content. Automation makes sense if it saves you time on routine tasks.
One feature not to be overlooked is to use variable names in the autoresponder, so generic messages can be personalized, and the prospect gets a feeling that you are personally sending this information on demand. (On a side note, a variation of this concept for technical support departments is to save common paragraphs and descriptions as email signatures, then when you compose a new message to a customer, you can select and insert those signature blocks of text and save yourself from having to retype the same stuff repeatedly.)
For outsourcing, that could get expensive. The whole point is that you are trying to identify prospective customers who will soon be making a purchase. So you will be on a shoestring budget unless your project is bankrolled by other funding sources. If you do decide to hire people, or pay to outsource, make sure you have visibility into the data they are working with. For example, setup and use a customer relationship management (CRM) system that allows multiple logins, can be reached with a web browser, and gives you the reports to show progress. My favorite 37signals.com has a couple of good options with basecamp, but there is also zoho.com and a few other major players.
How do you use your databases to identify prospects? Please add your comments below. Really want to know what other free CRM services people are using. Part two in the miniseries will be deciding who should get your next valuable product offer.
Unless you are satisfied with spending $3 million dollars for 30 seconds of television time during the 2009 Super Bowl XLIII in Tampa Bay, let's stay away from the mass marketing approach. Instead, dedicate your marketing budget towards a more focused effort of identifying your potential customers. What usually happens is you generate sales leads by advertising your product or service to a specific group of the mass population (to your target market, not mass marketing). The ad should have a response feature such as a telephone number, or website link, or email reply form. Those responses can be used to create your first database. From that point, you or your dedicated sales team will review the data collected, and figure out how to follow up with each person in an effort to convert them into paying customers.
But that's just one method, because sometimes you might buy a mailing list or prospect list to start with. So you already have the data, now you need to use it wisely. Your job is to sort and update the data until you find your willing customers. To help with this sales effort, which is a big undertaking for any sized company, you can try to automate as much of the process as possible or you can outsource the work.
For automation, think of email autoresponders that are timed to send out routine and necessary information to your prospective customers. Some autoresponders work by actually replying to email that is sent to them, or they can be based on a timer (wait 1 day, 1 week, or another interval) before sending the next piece of information in a sequence. The buzzword surrounding this concept in blogs and member websites is called drip feed, also known as incremental content. Automation makes sense if it saves you time on routine tasks.
One feature not to be overlooked is to use variable names in the autoresponder, so generic messages can be personalized, and the prospect gets a feeling that you are personally sending this information on demand. (On a side note, a variation of this concept for technical support departments is to save common paragraphs and descriptions as email signatures, then when you compose a new message to a customer, you can select and insert those signature blocks of text and save yourself from having to retype the same stuff repeatedly.)
For outsourcing, that could get expensive. The whole point is that you are trying to identify prospective customers who will soon be making a purchase. So you will be on a shoestring budget unless your project is bankrolled by other funding sources. If you do decide to hire people, or pay to outsource, make sure you have visibility into the data they are working with. For example, setup and use a customer relationship management (CRM) system that allows multiple logins, can be reached with a web browser, and gives you the reports to show progress. My favorite 37signals.com has a couple of good options with basecamp, but there is also zoho.com and a few other major players.
How do you use your databases to identify prospects? Please add your comments below. Really want to know what other free CRM services people are using. Part two in the miniseries will be deciding who should get your next valuable product offer.
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