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Firm Foundations

Every day my clients tell me that what they want is more business. They also want more profit, but more profit comes from having the right kind of customers and knowing where to find more.

Years of experience working in channel marketing roles for companies like Lucent Technologies has taught me one valuable lesson. Start with the basics. Get your database right and everything can be built on this. Many business owners are so keen to get on with running marketing campaigns that they overlook the fact that marketing must be database driven.

A company database is often something that has no centralised management. Instead, it evolves and expands over time as the company develops and if left to its own devices, can quickly become out of date, disorganised and largely useless. Expensive mailers are created, but often these are sent to totally inappropriate or inaccurate audiences, wasting money, time and effort for everyone.

Likewise, data is often purchased for specific campaigns and supplied by the list broker in Excel format. These mailing lists are then used but never incorporated into the main company prospect database. So, information which may already be known about a prospect is not used as part of the campaign - and new information gathered as a result of the activity does not find its way back onto the main database to be used in the future.

Every business should have an accurate database, even if it's a full-time job to keep it that way. I'm talking about a formal marketing database, not the core financial database system on which the business is run. This should include both customer and prospect information as existing customers are just as important an audience as prospects when it comes to running marketing campaigns. How else can you keep up a regular line of communication with your customers if you don't have the right information about them to hand?

It goes without saying that good database should contain up to date contact details, including email addresses where possible - and in addition to contact information, it should contain as much knowledge about a customer or prospect as it is possible to gather. The following quote from an unknown source makes a good point:

I don't know who you are
I don't know your company
I don't know your company's product
I don't know what your company stands for
I don't know your company's customers
I don't know your company's record
I don't know your company's reputation

Now what was it you wanted to sell me?

If

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