1.6. Record Information Within Company Specific Timeframes and Stated Procedures

The more detailed a picture you have of your target customers, the more effective and targeted your marketing can be. And if you know which individual customers are the most valuable, you can go that extra mile to encourage them to spend with your business. 

This section introduces you to various techniques and guidelines for collecting data on your customers and recording information within company-specific timeframes and stated procedures

You need to collect as much of the following as possible:

• Name and contact details:
  • Allows you to market directly to them.
  • Also lets you make communications personalised.
  • You may also need to contact them if an order is running late.
• Transaction history:
  • Indicates user preferences – which products they’re most inclined to buy, when, and how often.
  • Reveals how valuable a customer they are: how much they spend and how often.
• Communications from you to customers and any response they make:
  • You need to keep records of this to make sure you space out your communications correctly (i.e. not too often).
  • It also lets you monitor how effective different types of communication are and which the customer best responds to. If you compare their transaction history with the communications record, you may find one method of communication encourages them to buy more than others.
• Profile: age, gender, profession, income, hobbies, and so on:
  • This information is harder to obtain (see advice below) but can be useful for more advanced marketing strategies.
  • Once you have the info for a number of customers, you can build up a clearer picture of who exactly your target customer is.
  • It allows you to better focus your advertising and marketing efforts, as well as affiliate opportunities and sponsorships. If you know your target customer goes to the gym three times a week, it opens up a new place to advertise, a new line of gym-related products, and an opportunity to do a deal with the local gym to offer discounted membership if they shop with you X number of times.
  • Knowing their age and profession (and so an idea of their income) helps with pricing strategy.
  • The better and more detailed picture you have of your target customer, the more you can tailor and develop products to please them.
• Spending habits: how your customers shop – such as impulse buys, considered purchases, comparing the prices from different businesses, always with you on a regular basis, and so on:
• Birthdays:
  • Sending out a birthday text or card can add a personal touch and make a customer feel valued.
• Whether or not they pay on time:
  • This is obviously important for cash flow reasons rather than marketing ones, but it’s worth adding to the list anyway if you’re thinking about data collection.
• You can display goods and structure deals around consumers’ spending habits – think of how supermarkets put magazines and chocolate bars at the checkout: impulse buys.
• Can be difficult to assess – you may need the help of a market research agency or detailed surveys with trusted customers. Or you can try out different strategies and see which works. You can also take an educated guess based on your knowledge of the market.