For businesses, collection and analysis of customer data can become one of their greatest assets in learning more about the needs and wants of their customers.
This customer data can come from many different sources, in many different formats:
Collecting data is one thing, but customers only ever accept the value in it if you the use it to improve their experience within your business.
For example, you can use the email addresses collected to engage on a regular basis with customers. E.g. welcome messaging, birthday greetings, loyalty awards, anniversary reminders, surveys/polls, as well early advice of promotions, events etc. The aim being to retain existing customers.
As your database of email addresses builds up from many sources, it is important to manage it. FinTech can help with this with a ‘clean up’, including:
- Removing any duplicates
- Correcting or removing invalid email addresses
- Correcting typos (e.g. coth instead of co.th)
- Correcting bad syntax (e.g. no @ sign, no .com)
- Removing “role accounts” (e.g. webmaster@, support@, info@, etc.)
- Removing all “hard bounce” email addresses (non-existent, inactive or invalid domains)
- Removing “throwaway/disposable” or “junk collector” email addresses
- Removing any “spam trap”, “blacklist” or “BOT domain” email addresses
- Converting single column containing first name, second name, into two columns suitable for your CRM and mailserver
- Segmentation to allow precisely targeted marketing
- Uploading to your CRM in the correct format.
Customer relationship management is crucial.
- Creating a bond with the existing customers ensures that you won’t have to work on getting them again like new traffic.
- Having a bond with customers increases the chance of making purchases.
- When you make your customers feel welcome even after the purchase, they too start feeling some loyalty towards your brand.
- Since the brand image is already created before all this even begins, customers will have something to relate to or look up to when they make purchases.
- When you maintain a strong bond letting the customers know they are valued, the customers become your friend.
- With prolonged good customer relationship management, customers feel obliged or happy to advocate your brand to others and that’s how your business rises to success and permanence.
That’s the real power of analytics.
Contact us today if your customer database could do with an ‘hygienic clean’.
Additional reading: Is email still a profitable marketing channel?
And:
Why email marketing is still important
