vogel marketing solutions

Tips on Capturing Email Addresses and Other Key Data

 

Database marketing is an important component of your marketing strategy. Rather than employing broad marketing messages through advertising, a well-managed database marketing effort is focused, relevant, measurable, and can provide a much higher return on your marketing investment. Here are some easy-to-implement tips on capturing customer and prospect data in order to maximize your database marketing:

 

ASK FOR IT! Seems simple, right? My experience shows that few companies, especially in business-to-business, make a concerted effort to capture valuable customer or prospect information. Here are some ideas you can put in place today:

  • Place a sign-up form on every page of your website. Just name and email. Don’t hide it just on the “Contact Us” page.
  • Use transactional mailings or emails to capture additional data—such as printed or e-newsletters, invoices, project updates, “staying-in-touch” notes, etc. Ask them to “update their account”.
  • Make your front desk / call centers part of the process. Give them forms to remind them what info you need—and measure them on their success.
  • Make your sales team part of the process.  So often the sales teams and marketing teams don’t interact enough. Make sure your sales people get more than just name / address / phone.

QUID PRO QUO: if they are expected to give up their contact info, give something in return. Such as:

  • Write a White Paper: You certainly must have people in your company who are experts in their field. Write about what you know—just like I’m doing here.
  • Provide discounts on your products or services. B2B marketers are hesitant to do this, and perceive this as going against their brand. However, I see this growing in all segments.
  • Give away something with real value. It doesn’t just need to be the cliché coffee mug. Buy them a subscription to an industry trade journal. Or a $10 Staples gift card.
  • How do you determine how much to “give away?” Easy! I created an “ROI Calculator.” It’s a detailed Excel spreadsheet that you can use to determine the value of a single email address. You might be shocked at how valuable each email address. Sign-up below to receive your calculator. (See what I did here? If you give me your email address, I give you the calculator! Don’t worry – I never share or rent my list, and you can unsubscribe easily with one click.)

IN-HOUSE RESEARCH: during slow business cycles, why not engage staff from throughout your company to gather data for you? From the warehouse to the field, all your co-workers can use a phone or a computer. Have them work the phones or use Internet research to capture up-to-date information: new job titles, cell phone numbers, or – most important of all – email addresses.

 

ADD A POP-UP: this sometimes requires some advanced skills, but pop-up forms are becoming increasingly accepted, and demonstrate excellent response rates. You can even schedule a pop-up window to appear only when the visitor signals they are going to leave your page!

 

LAUNCH A SURVEY: people like to share their thoughts, so create a Survey Monkey survey that is relevant to your industry. Not only do you capture email addresses, but you gather important data about your market, competitors, pricing and so on.

 

I can perform a review of your data-capture process and help implement improvements. Call me at 717-368-5143, or email me now.

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