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You must have a Living, Breathing Customer Database

If you're like most small business owners, you want to maximize referrals and repeat business so that you don't have to spend your time chasing down leads and convincing folks that they should do business with you. But building this type of business takes constant contact with your customers.

You see, as the months go by, your past customers just aren't thinking about you anymore. That's the cold, hard truth. And no matter how great your service was, your customers are busy living their lives--odds are, they won't remember you. And they definitely won't mention your name at the next family picnic when Uncle Jack starts talking about the pains your product or service fixes.

Am I saying that good service won't help you get a referral here and there? Of course not!

What I am saying is that if you want a strong customer base that is the backbone of your business, you must actively, systematically and methodically BUILD YOUR CUSTOMER BASE.

You Must Have A Living, Breathing Customer Database.

So, what do I mean when I say you need a "living, breathing customer database?"

Well, you need to actively build your customer database---every day, every week, every month! All of your contact, prospect and customer data, order & billing info... everything needs to be entered and stored in the database. You need these people organized into meaningful groups. And you need the flexibility to sort through the database so that on a moment's notice you can pull up prospects or customers that might bring you more business.

And when you combine a solid customer database with the power of follow-up campaigns (autoresponders), you have the ability to land lots of new business in a short period of time. You can effortlessly run a customer loyalty campaign that keeps your name in front of customers... and keeps repeat business and referrals coming your way.

If you'd like to learn more about how you can easily begin to build a customer database for your business, give me a call or send me an email. It's actually much simpler than you thinks and requires litle or no effort.

Make Your Website an Email List Building Machine

  Everybody knows one-sided relationships never work. The same is true with websites. If a website is focused entirely upon you, you will lose any visitors that may stumble across it. On the other hand, a website done correctly (one that focuses on the visitor) can easily become a lead capturing machine!

So as you are considering building or redesigning your website think carefully about how to collect people's details when they visit your site.  There are many schools of thought on how this should be done.






Now remember people are visiting your site for a reason and typically want to do something.  Give your visitors something to do. Give them something free to download. Let them register for an online competition giveaway (eg Holiday promotion). Ask for their opinion on a blog entry.

Do something, anything, and once the person responds, you "Require" the following information: name, and email.  Are they a qualified lead yet, maybe not but over time they may become a great customer through smart email marketing strategy.  I'll discuss auto-responders in my next blog.

B2B Mobile / Email Marketing: Yes You Can!

Everyone seems to be talking about the benefits of mobile marketing to consumers, and with good reason. SMS (Short Message Service, commonly referred to as mobile texting) enables you to reach a wide audience in a matter of seconds knowing that most people are likely to respond to your message within an hour of receipt.

But while the primary focus of SMS mobile marketing has been on reaching consumers (B2C), businesses have been missing out on the opportunity to use mobile to market to other businesses (B2B). That's a problem, because now more than ever professionals are relying on their mobile phones to receive and respond to messages that are of value to them.

The fact is mobile marketing has established itself as a valuable component of successful integrated marketing programs providing another channel to reach both consumer and business audiences. With the rapid growth of the mobile market, it's time for B2B marketers to consider how to effectively integrate mobile marketing into the mix. Mobile Use is Growing Rapidly

Because professionals are connected to their mobile devices as a quick response mechanism, they tend to be responsive to B2B mobile marketing messages as well.

Mobile & Email Marketing Working Together

Combining email and SMS is an exceptional marketing strategy due to the high usage of smartphones. Email and mobile marketing used together provide a cost-effective way to send personalized content that subscribers are looking for and that can return successful and measurable campaign results.

With B2B mobile/email marketing you can:

• Create a dialogue with your business customers through SMS/email alerts that keep them up-to-date on information important to their jobs. Mobile has become the most personal communication channel available to bring you closer to your target market without interacting face-to-face.
• Target quality subscribers. Since mobile/email marketing is permission based, meaning subscribers have to opt in before receiving messages, you’ll be able to reach a targeted audience of interested subscribers who want to hear more about your company and offers.
• Increase brand awareness and generate additional revenue. Most people are willing to provide their mobile phone numbers/email address if they can be assured that they'll only receive messages on topics of interest to them. The same goes for business professionals. If you can demonstrate the benefits of opting in to your mobile/email program, they will be more open to receiving your marketing messages, which can increase brand awareness and start new discussions that can generate new revenue.

Measuring B2B Mobile Success and ROI

We’re still learning about the mobile/email marketing industry and its standards, best practices and overall potential. The question many marketers have is how to track success and return on investment - what are the most meaningful metrics to track and how to report them. Fortunately there are many ways marketers can measure the effectiveness of mobile and email marketing initiatives.

To measure how people interact and engage with your content, you can monitor the same metrics used for email marketing: open and click-through rates, forwarding and sharing. It's also important to monitor your list growth rate, and track offer redemptions. Using Web analytics, you can monitor Web site traffic driven by mobile/email campaigns.

Mobile marketing provides a lot of value by helping people stay up-to-date with the latest news, promotions and offers that benefit them. They're no longer tied to their desktops. That's why it's more important than ever to create marketing content that can be accessed anywhere and on any device to ensure that your on-the-go audience is receiving your messages.