It’s the holidays and I’m making a list and checking it twice. And while I’m at it, I will also make note of who has been naughty and who nice.
Sometime before or around Thanksgiving you probably started to clean up your mailing list to mail out your holiday greeting cards. You might have just relied on emails for holiday greetings – not the best idea but I see a lot of people and companies doing just that. drivingschoolintoronto
You might have separated your lists into categories such as business / personal / vendors, or maybe gone deeper creating categories such as prospects / a customers / b customers / c customers/vendors/family/friends.
So now that you have your lists front and center take a hard long look at them to understand how they can work for you. If you don’t have the time then hire a temp or an agency or a virtual assistant to invest in getting your list to be a gold mine that can actually deliver business results.
Why? Because we can’t talk to everyone the same and expect results. We can’t even expect to speak to everyone on the same channel or through a single medium anymore and expect results. Here are some things to pay attention to when segmenting and tagging your contact lists that will help you deliver more powerful marketing in 2011:
1. When / where did you meet or come into contact?
2. Are they a part of an organization or association?
3. Who introduced you? Who do you know in common?
4. How did they find you?
5. What industry are they in?
6. Are they local / regional / national / international?
7. Who is their assistant?
8. Who do they report to?
9. How do they prefer contact (phone / email / fax / IM / text)?
10. What is their job function / title?
11. When is their birthday or anniversary?
12. When did they place their first order with you or ask for their first estimate?
13. What did they order or ask for pricing on?
14. Was it for a special project or is this something they do regularly?
15. Are they on LinkedIn / Twitter / Facebook and if so are you connected?
16. Do they subscribe to your blog or newsletter – and if so did they open it or click on anything?
17. Do they blog – if so do you read it?
18. When is the last time you were in touch?
19. What is their potential: a one hit wonder or a steady customer and what kind of volume could you expect to win?
20. What are their hobbies or interests? Male/Female? Married/Single? Children? Pets? WHATEVER MATTERS TAKE NOTE.
If you can start to focus on getting and keeping as much of this kind of information in a database – commonly referred to as a CRM (customer relationship management) system then we can do some really creative and effective marketing. temp-mail
Just as powerful, with this kind of information readily available to your sales and service teams, you will help them be more resourceful, personable caregivers to your customers. That’s the stuff that makes customers loyal.