Why Data is King

Some say that the value of a business is largely dependent on the amount of client data that business stores. Businesses with a good CRM (Client Relationship Management) tend to know more about their clients including their trends; spend patterns, wants and dislikes, etc. Businesses with data lists for marketing also effectively have an opted-in list of recipients who have basically put their hands in the air and said '"I want to know more about your Business and products". It must be said though that data must be fresh, and it must be relevant and people must be opted in. We've all heard of businesses that have 'bought' lists of data in the past from unscrupulous suppliers and worse still, some of us have heard of businesses that go around 'scraping' email addresses and contacts from web sites to use in an email marketing campaign.



So, how do you go about keeping your opted-in subscribers happy, and to build your lists even further still? One word answer: Bribery! Clients need reassurance that you aren't going to use their personal contact information to continually bombard them with rubbish and let's face facts, they are subscribing for a reason...either to get prior notice of new products, special promotional offers or competitions, and corporate giveaways, etc. If you do decide to abuse their trust, the chances are that they will unsubscribe from any further mailings, and possibly even report you for spam. You don't want that.

So, start by collect minimum information from your subscriber list. Everybody likes to receive an email that addresses them as a named person, rather than just as a generic recipient of a mass broadcasted mailshot. Then perhaps encourage subscribers to add further detail...maybe their position within their company or maybe the county where their company is located. This divulgence doesn't seem like they're giving much away, but for you, you can start to build a profile of who your subscribers are and where they are based and so on.



In terms of that bribery, we mentioned earlier on. Maybe run competitions from time to time or better still, giveaways. This is also an excellent opportunity to 'clean' your lists. If users don't engage continually it could be that they aren't even receiving your emails or if they are, they may just be putting them straight in the spam folder or bin. So every now and again, clean your lists of data up.



In terms of what you promotional giveaways could be...that's where we come in. We have thousands of low-cost items from pens, sweets, toys and office items. We have a super-friendly sales team who will happily tell you the sort of things they like to receive out of the blue and which fit your price range. Deciding to do all this at the last minute? Not a problem either as we have lots of lines ready for a superfast turnaround. 

Remember, data IS king!