“If you help enough people get what they want…”
You probably know the rest of this famous Zig Ziglar quote.
In today’s world, if you don’t already know what people want, and give it to them when they want it… somebody else gets the dollars.
Problem is, it takes a lot of dollars to figure out what people want, right?
Maybe.
Then again, maybe you are not the typical company today with the Spend-and-Pray marketing plan. No sir.
You have analytics for your website, and you know how to use this data. When you send out an offer via email, direct mail or similar, you know the name, age, gender, income and hobbies of everyone who responds. You also know exactly when and what they buy from you.
That’s why your next offer to them is exactly what they want and they love you for it. In fact, they even tell their friends about you.
If this is NOT the way your company’s marketing works, don’t despair. According to an August 2013 TDWI BP Report, only 3% of US organizations consider their big data management plans “deployed and mature.”
In other words, three percent know what their customers want.
Why only 3%?
Surely because it takes huge piles of cash to get this information, right?
Wrong!
Here’s the first way to win loyalty and attract customers and it is very low-cost:
1) Start Your Marketing Efforts With Consumer Data
For just pennies more per person, you can know the name, age, gender – all the demographics – instead of just an address, as you get with occupant data. With occupant data, you begin with no demographics, so you must use some way to collect this data as you go.
With consumer data, you already have the vital information you need. You are marketing to a person’s specific likes, wants and needs, rather than to just the “Current Resident”.
You don’t have to rely directly on the consumer to provide this data either. You see trends right from the start, instead of the slower path: matching future responder data to existing data.
Using consumer data, you can really understand, early on, so much more about who buys from you – as well as what, when, how and why.
Here’s the second way to win loyalty and attract customers (also low cost):
2) Get Your List From A Reputable Source
Not much explanation needed here – it really does make a difference to your bottom line to get current, accurate data from an ethical source!
There’s nothing that gets a consumer riled up like receiving ads targeted at their mother who has been deceased for months.
Also, 10 people with their credit cards, ready to buy, are far better than 100 question marks.
Here is the third way (again, low cost):
3) Track Each Offer Sent
Add simple and actionable tracking to each of your offers.
Yes, this ensures your clerk pushes the right discount button at the POS, but it gives you so much more.
Offer tracking is absolutely the easiest way for consumers to tell you what they want. You targeted a consumer with an offer. Their response tells you they like the offer.
Without tracking, you must guess again whether the consumer liked your offer, or hassle them with more questions: “Did you like the offer? What do you like?” Consumers rarely have time for this.
Just use tracking. Always connect consumer responses with your initial targeting – without hassling the consumer for more info.
Ideally, you would capture this offer tracking data as close to the point of sale as possible. If your current POS system cannot do it, why not use an inexpensive phone or mobile device to track your offers?
What opportunities does point-of-sale tracking open up? Well, how powerful is it to know that a specific consumer (we’ll call him Carl) always redeems coupons on Thursday at 9AM? Why not email Carl an offer at 8AM on Thursday while he is checking his email?
Tracking email and mobile campaigns can be just as easy as direct mail. Simply scan the consumer’s phone or an email print-out.
Not feasible for you to capture this data at the point of sale? Don’t give up. There are still easy tracking options available – as long as you track the offers to start with.
The main thing is the tracking. Analyzing and crunching the numbers from offer responders is just so valuable! It holds the key to so many answers to help you understand what your customers really want.
Without good tracking, your marketing is truly the Spend-and-Pray Plan.
Here is the fourth low-cost way to win loyalty and attract customers:
4) Keep Your Data Fresh
People are changing jobs, homes and their lives at an astounding rate today. If you don’t keep up with them, you can lose all the results of your efforts to keep them buying from you. Again, at pennies per person, why not keep up with the list of people you started with? Current email, address, phone number, etc.
When you send out any marketing communication, no matter how good your list, another inevitable thing will happen: A few people will request that you stop marketing to them.
At first this might seem discouraging. Yet very few do this. In the whole scheme of things, you can expect it, and it’s not really a problem – as long as you have an easy way to manage these requests.
Here is the last of the five ways to win loyalty and attract customers. This costs nothing, but very few companies do it. This is your chance to shine!
5) Decide To Be An Excellent Marketer Who Has Hordes of Customers Who Love Them
People still buy saturation data. Some buy outdated lists from disreputable sources. Others don’t track the offers they send out. Nor do they freshen their data. Of course, some may feel they have good reasons for doing this.
Hmm, didn’t we say that only 3% know what their customers want?
Cost is not a barrier to be in the 3%.
Marketing data just may be your most valuable resource. It’s certainly not an endangered one. It pours in from everywhere within your company.
Yet what makes it valuable? Its source? Its format? Its quantity? No, the value of data depends on what you do with it.
Go forth and attract many customers, give them what they want – and get what you want!
