Using Client Databases to Develop More Strategic Offers

Last week, Marka and the FEI tribe learned how to grow FEI’s internal database for strategic marketing purposes. This week, they discuss how information on customers and prospects recorded in these databases can be used to develop strategic offers. Remember, fire = print.

One afternoon, the FEI tribe found a shirtless Zoot sitting cross-legged on the conference room table.

“What’s going on here?” Marka asked.

“Shh,” Zoot said. “I’m meditating.”

“Meditate on this,” Org declared. “Now that we understand how to grow our customer and prospect lists, how can we use these lists to help achieve our business objectives?”

“It’s simple,” Marka replied. “The better we know our customers, the better we can market to them. We can target different customers with cross- and up-selling offers they’re more likely to be interested in based on expressed buying interests we’ve recorded in our database.”

“I get it,” Zoot said, unfolding his legs and stretching out. “If our sales and customer-service personnel do their duty, we should have an accurate and thorough record of which customers are buying what. This information can be considered when crafting future targeted communications.

“For example, we can target any customer that’s purchased matches in the last three months with an offer for a monogrammed match-holder. Those who have already bought our matches will more likely have a need for that product.”

“Exactly,” Marka exclaimed. “There are many ways we can segment our database based on what we know about each customer and prospect, in order to enhance our direct marketing campaign. For instance, we can also send separate mail or O–mail streams—each containing a different offer—to companies that fit different criteria in the following categories, to name a few:

• Geographical area
• Expressed budget
• Competitors used
• Amount of work done (by dollar volume) with FEI last year
• Strength of business relationship (e.g. A customer or B customer; A prospect or B prospect)

“Clearly, promotions that are strategically targeted based on our customer and prospect database information can help us get the right offer to the right prospects,” Zoot pointed out.