Selling more to existing customers is naturally just
easier, and should be balanced with your efforts to reach
new buyers or revive dormant ones.
As a general rule of thumb, a stable business with solid
products/services and good customer service can
expect the average relationship to last five to seven
years before a customer is lost through natural attrition:
a death, relocation, job change or another business
relationship develops.
This loss, also known as customer churn, is normal.
Consequently, you want to have a plan in place with
solid lead generation marketing activities. And one
of the best places to start lead gen is by knowing the
attributes of your current “best” customers.
Today’s savvy marketers can’t afford to waste time or
money reaching out to prospects that have little chance
of becoming buyers. Even if you have a pretty good idea
of who your best customers are, can you define them in
terms that will help you find the next “like kind” business
or consumer?
Your company’s house files can offer a gold mine of
information for “cloning” customers and minimizing the
waste associated with marketing to the wrong prospects.
Using your house files, you can take the basic
information you have about your best business
or consumer customers that reflects the existing
relationship, and working with your marketing services
provider, add demographic information to enhance your
customer profile.
Both business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-
consumer (B2C) marketers can benefit from customer
profiling. More robust customer data improves
the effectiveness of targeted prospect marketing
campaigns, and helps you to cross-sell and up-sell
to current customers. It can also guide your efforts
to reactivate dormant or lost ones.
B2B data fields that can “flesh out” a top customer
profile would include annual sales, number of employees,
legal status, location type, minority-owned business,
nonprofit, owner versus renter or years in business, just
to name a few.
Examples of B2C data fields would be adults in the
household and their ages, credit card ownership, home
ownership or equity available, household income,
length of time in the residence, marital status, and
number and ages of children present in the home.
Data Begets Data
Essential to any good lead generating activity is the
capture of prospect data so you can actively nurture
that lead toward a purchase. For example, your direct
mail piece might ask prospects to download a free
informational guide via a campaign landing page or
by returning a reply card.
In both response channels, be sure to have a simple
lead capture form where your prospects exchange
additional information, like an email address or their
product/service interests, for the content they seek.
This is also a great place to ask them to “opt-in to our
e-newsletter,” so you have their permission to contact
them via email for ongoing nurture, moving you toward
your goal of replacing expected lost revenue with
new sales.
Contact us if you need guidance with customer
profiling or list sourcing. We’re here to help!
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1
Direct Marketing Association Response Rate Report 2015
3
Test a Targeted Campaign
It gets even better. Data-driven prospecting
allows you to target mailings to very specific
audiences using specialty lists.
Need to reach coaches or counselors? Sewing
enthusiasts? Pet owners or animal advocates?
Back pain sufferers? Donors to children’s
charities? There’s a list for that.
Schedule a test mailing in your 2016 marketing
plan using a highly specialized list. Include
a relevant special offer or incentive. And
package it all in a mailer that gets noticed.
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