In crazy times, like a stock market plunging and gaining day after day, it is hard not to be overly reactive. One thing doesn’t change, and that’s the value of your database, your list of customers/members. The customer or member information that you have captured in a database is a gold mine. Every transaction performed and communication with the customer/member gives you vital data that can be used to enhance marketing efforts and stretch your marketing budget! Here are some LEMMONTREE Laws to consider:
Profiling for Dollars. For every product or service you offer, review the demographics of the most active users. Profiling allows you to build more business with those people who most likely will take advantage of your offers. In addition, there are more on the fringe of the profile.
Know Who Is Profitable. Build a tight relationship with the people who keep your business in business. If these people are profitable for you, you can bet someone else wants them, too, so your database information allows you to romance them to keep them.
Make New Friends. Profiling and profitability studies help you to develop acquisition strategies, in essence, who you want and what relationship you want with them. Once the new person has opened an account or purchased something from you, there needs to be a marketing strategy in place to build the relationship with the newbie.
Keep the Old. The old adage of “make new friends but keep the old, one is silver and the other gold,” is true. Every business needs to continue to attract new customers to grow, yet the most profitability is usually made from the longer-term relationships. For every marketing dollar spent to gain more business from an existing customer/member, it costs $5 to attract the same business from someone new.
Show Me the Money. The best part of working with a database is the ability to capture results of marketing efforts. From how much dollar volume was generated to how many new people were attracted, to how profitable the campaign or promotion was, a marketer can justify marketing expenditures more easily to CFOs and CEOs who want to see the “numbers!”
Do you have other “laws” that still work for you today?