Why building a customer database is good for your business

Why building a customer database is good for your business

 

Building a database of prospective and existing customers is essential to any business to succeed, especially online. In this article we will explore the ways to build a customer database as well as how to engage your database or community to keep your brand top of mind with your target audience.

 

building customer database

Why having a customer database is essential?

 

For Creating Brand Affinity

In today’s digital age, consumers want to buy from businesses they know and love. With a customer database, you have the ability to build your company brand affinity by producing valuable content, and sending out marketing emails or through social media channels to people that have followed your brand and opted to receive communications. Reaching out to potential and existing customers by sharing, interesting content, new products, special offers or company news can help your target audience feel connected to your business and this will nurture a relationship of brand trust.

 

For Developing Customer Loyalty

Having a well maintained and monitored customer database allows your business to identify and segment the most loyal and profitable customers. With this data you are able to target and give VIP treatment to a segment of your audience. An effective way to reach these customers is through email marketing that takes the preferences of the customer into account. You can also use other channels like SMS marketing, or social media marketing for building customer loyalty. When you constantly engage customers, you are building further brand loyalty, and can inspire your customers to share your brand with their friends and family. Sending them special offers, and updates is a great way to encourage new engagement and purchases.

 

Having Direct Channel to Customers

One of the main benefits of having a customer database is that you have data of actual customers that have purchased from you in the past. You can target them directly on a one to one basis, and you have more leverage because they are verified customers, as they are already interested in your product or service. There is less cost and effort associated with targeting an existing database, compared to prospecting for new customers.

For Launching New Products

Launching new products to a smaller segment of your target audience is a great way to test the market before launching it on a larger scale. You can target an audience based on information in your customer database. Selecting a segment of your most engaged customers can allow your business to gather constructive feedback that will help improve later versions of your product or service. Monitoring what your customers think and what they want, is a great way to enhance your products, and this is essential for continuous improvement.

Providing Better Customer Service

Your happy customers are good for business. Customer database marketing allows you to develop a stronger relationship with your customers. Having information like buying behaviour, engagement history, purchase feedback and reviews allows your business to take a more customer-centric approach to your customer service. Monitoring and keeping up to date with the wants of your customer’s needs, gives your business the insights necessary to personalise communication so you can serve them better, and they become more loyal customers.

 

 

create customer database

How to build your customer database?

 

Content marketing

You can use content marketing to capture new potential leads or nurture leads into customers using content marketing strategies. By creating valuable, knowledgeable, relevant, and helpful content, you can build a customer database by using a web form so users must enter their information in exchange for this content. Use clear and compelling calls to action (CTAs) to clarify what consumers will get when they fill out these forms. It could be for newsletter sign ups, request for a free trial, access to an eBook or white-paper etc. When you receive an email address, keep them engaged with newsletters and product or service updates.

 

Promotions & competitions

People always love to win, and that’s why consumer gamification does so well in building a consumer database. Promotions & competitions triggers a positive response in website visitors. It’s a next level, user-first approach to marketing that employs competition, engagement, and/or awards. Gamification improves user engagement and can be used to build or grow a customer database.

 

Give-aways & coupons/discounts

Most users are OK with giving up their email address or liking your business’s Facebook page in exchange for monetary savings, especially repetitive sales and membership discounts. A giveaway or contest is a great way to keep your users engaged. It’s also a key strategy to drive sign-ups and build databases. For example, “Refer your friends & be entered for the chance to win!” Surveys also provide a great avenue of data and give you information of what people want. In exchange for a bit of contact information, they get to share their opinions, and you get better data on the preferences of your target audience.

Social media

Social media is essential for building databases and communities. Here are some of the best platforms for building your database/community:

LinkedIn is a goldmine of information on your business prospects and the companies they work at. You can leverage this social media platform to build a database of prospective clients who are your target audience.

Facebook is the world’s most popular social media site with over 4 billion profiles. If your target audience uses Facebook more than other social media platforms, Facebook may be the best social media platform for building a community and database of potential customers.

 

In person

There are many ways to build your customer database in-person, and these strategies are still viable options to complement online marketing.

Many retail shops implement email address collection or Facebook prompts when making a sale. They’ll ask for your information, so you can subscribe to their email newsletters, product updates, discounts, and more, or follow their social media page for updates.

Networking events is a great way to build your customer database, with each business card comes a new digital contact. Attending trade shows are also an easy strategy to get new contacts. These large-scale consumer events will drive a lot of foot traffic, so take advantage of this opportunity to build your company database.

 

 

engage customer database 4

 

How to engage your customer database?

 

1. Make your content marketing more human

Engaging customer database means allowing them to relate to your company on a personal level. If you never present the human side of your business, making that personal connection will be difficult.

 

2. Ask your customers more questions

If you want to form better relationships with your customers, you need to start the conversation, and what better way to do so than the simple act of asking them a question, whether it be on social media or in a survey.

 

3. Engage through valuable educational content

If you want to make your content more engaging to your customer database, a trick is to focus on educating your customers with valuable content. Currently there is a lot of popularity on how-to and tutorial-based content.

 

4. Personalise your customer experience

8% of customers are more likely to buy from brands who offer them a more personalised experience. So it literally pays to build relationships with customer through personalised experience rather than a one size fits all..

 

5. Reaching customers on their preferred communication channels

Customers can quickly become frustrated from over-communication on multiple communication channels. A better tactic is to use data to understand which channels your customers prefer and use those preferred channels as the main channels for communication.

 

 

customer database tools

 

 

What tools can you use to help manage your customer database?

 

1. Zendesk

Zendesk offers a complete CRM and customer database management system for businesses of all sizes.

2. Zoho CRM

Zoho’s high-rated CRM works for a range of businesses.

3. HubSpot CRM

HubSpot CRM can be a good choice for small to midsize businesses.

4. Freshworks CRM

Freshworks CRM attracts small businesses for its ease-of-use.

5. Salesforce

The veteran CRM software can handle any size of business.

6. Bitrix24

Bitrix24 CRM is a free option for smaller teams.

7. Pipedrive CRM

Pipedrive is an easy-to-use CRM focused on small businesses.

8. Apptivo CRM

Apptivo provides a well-rounded CRM database software.

 

 

customer database sales

How to turn your client database into sales?

Up-selling customers on your database to make more purchases

You can use your customer database to identify which customers are buying what products. From there, you can design a target email marketing campaign offering a discount for related products for a limited time.

 

Offering personalised customer support

When you receive an incoming support call or enquiry, you are able to pull up your client’s profile in your customer database and see if they are a new customer or existing customer with their purchase history. With this information, give them personalised support based on what they have previously bought to ensure they receive excellent customer support and a quick resolution.

 

Choosing the right product to recommend

If you are looking to promote a specific product or up-sell, you can use your customer database to view purchasing history and demographic data of your customer to find insights as well as eligible customers for a promotion. You can use this list to send a personalised direct communication to the customer thanking them for their loyalty and encouraging them to buy your promoted product.

 

Customer data is like Gold

As you know by now, the make or break moment comes down to having better consumer marketing data than your competitors. Even the best data is only as good as the marketing strategy it’s used alongside with. Your company will need to embrace the value of marketing data early and you’ll be amazed what it can do for your business.

 

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Ben Liau

Ben is seasoned digital and technology leader with years of experience in multiple industries. He is also a cryptocurrency and blockchain enthusiast.

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