Knowing your customers means knowing who the people are who buy your products or use your services. Obviously, it does not mean meeting them one by one, or even contacting them as samples. Knowing your audience means knowing how old your clients are, what their jobs are, if they are students if they are teenagers or elderly, etc. It also means knowing in which geographic area sales are concentrated and where they are scarce, and also what is the preferred purchase or payment method for a certain age group or segment.
In order to know and be able to exploit all this information, it is necessary to create a database for customer management and then learn to consult it properly. In this article, we will see how to do it but also how all this can help increase sales.
The data you collect about your customers should help you understand who they are, where they are, and how they shop. Therefore, the data you need to collect is:
In addition to the first name, last name and, very importantly, email address or another contact method, it will also be important that you collect geographic information: where the customer lives and, if they bought in a physical store of your branch, also in which store they bought. If you have the opportunity, try to get information about their interests. For your clothing or gift shop with Cerdá children's products, you can ask the customer to specify their favorite character.
The purchase data includes information such as: what items have been purchased, whether it is the first purchase in the store or the customer is a regular, what payment method they have chosen.
A rating system (the classic stars) is the most immediate way to collect customer feedback on products. E-commerce also allows users to provide more detailed feedback. In this case, user complaints or positive comments are a valuable source of information.
Now that we know what data is important for business, promotional, or other business purposes, let's discuss how to collect this data.
In this case, we have to face two questions: the first refers to how to collect data, or how it allows the customer to provide the information we need without boring them, without giving up the purchase and without having to call or send an email to all our customers . one by one. Next, we will move on to discover how to insert this data into a database so that it is always available.
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There are several data collection possibilities to create a database for customer management:
Creating a customer card is one of the most complete ways to collect data and create your database. As customers, we have all spent those 5 minutes in a store to activate a card that gives us access to certain benefits (usually a collection of points that gives access to rewards or small discounts). The benefits to you, the merchant, are even greater.
With the customer card you can collect contact details and demographic information is recorded with a small form.
By requesting the card at the sale point at the time of payment, it will collect information about the purchases made by each customer. In addition to the purchase data, data is collected on the frequency and preferred payment methods of each customer.
With a customer card, you also get the advantage of loyalty from the customer, who will be more inclined to continue shopping in the same store.
To collect data about your customers, you will need to have them fill out a form. Because they fill out the form before fleeing to make more purchases (or close the website of your e-commerce) you have to offer them something in return. A discount is usually the most effective way.
The promotion can be a discount on products for newsletter subscribers; but customers can also be asked to sign up for the promotion. In this case, you will have to devise a promotion that has a specific duration: for example, in periodic purchases or in a gift box after total purchases of the same product.
To participate in the promotion, customers will be willing to fill in the form you propose and provide their data.
Newsletters are widely used by digital and online businesses, but the fact is, they can be used by retailers as well. Newsletters are emails that are sent periodically to a community, in this case, customers. Emails may contain information, but, an even more successful strategy, also discounts reserved for the community.
By subscribing to the newsletter, you can request the necessary data, but through the newsletter, you can also propose surveys that we can use to collect even more specific data.
You might also be interested in: Email marketing strategies for 2021
All e-commerce sites, with rare exceptions, work by registering on the site or creating your account. In his account, the customer can see his purchases, the status of his shipments and the old products he has ordered to eventually repeat the purchase. The account creation phase will then be used to collect the most essential data.
It is important, however, not to overdo it and avoid creating cumbersome forms that the user takes too long to fill out: the risk is that they will give up the purchase.
Let's move on to the more practical aspect of creating the database for customer management. Once all this data has been collected, how to store it?
The tools available are many.
If you are a beginner, you can start creating your database with Excel sheets thanks to which you can manually enter data in an orderly way and also consult your database quickly and easily.
This method has the advantage of being virtually free, easy to use, and requires very little technical skills. But as soon as your business begins to grow you will notice that, on the one hand, it will be impossible to enter all the data by hand and, on the other hand, the query of the database through the Excel table is no longer effective.
Once configured, the dedicated software does all the work for you, including entering data automatically. This software is not free and requires a learning period, in which through videos, tutorials and guides provided by the software distribution company, you will have to get used to using the program.
The advantage is the possibility of having rich databases, always automatically updated and easy to consult.
So far we have talked about creating your own customer management database, but what are the benefits of having one?
When you know your customers, your entire marketing campaign can be tailored to the type of target customer. You can even segment your audience and create personalized campaigns for each segment. In this way, the marketing will be more effective and this will translate into an increase in profits.
From Cerdá we would like to offer you our support for the birth and growth of your business. To make the most of all the resources of our time, you can also read: how to digitize my business
At Cerdá we are manufacturers and wholesalers specialized in licensing products and children's characters for more than 40 years. Our products help create unique moments of happiness and that is our greatest motivation. In Cerdá we strive every day to make the dreams of our children and clients a reality. Join the Cerdá family!
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