To be able to optimize out marketing campaigns to existing customers, we need to make sure we have all the data required to be successful.

As I have mentioned before, you need to track all customer sales in a database, whether it be in a simple excel spreadsheet or a CRM tool, it doesn’t really matter.

The basic information to track is as follows.

• Customer Name

We need this purely for identification purposes.

• Customer Contact Details. Tel cell and mailing address

We use the contact details to be able to keep up regular communications with customers for follow up marketing purposes. The more contact details the better. Contacting customers via all available contact methods maximizes the results we receive from our follow up marketing.

• Customer demographics (if available): Gender, Age, Industry Etc.

Example, a health business person, you have an easy excuse to collect age and gender as this fits with knowledge required by health professionals.

Base on demographics, we can easily tell what the best method and products we will target when marketing to these customers. Women for example will respond to different products or marketing messages then men.

• First purchase date.

This data is required for us to track the purchase frequency of this customer

• First purchase product name

Product purchased allows us to tell what type of products this customer prefers, and allows us to market complementary or advanced version of similar products to them.

• First Purchase Spend

This purchase spend allows us to track the value of each customer over a period of time. This ties into the lifetime customer value as discussed in the last article.

• Second Purchase Date etc.
• Second Purchase Product Name etc.
• Second Purchase Spend etc.

So how do we use this data?

First of all we will be using this data to analyze and group our customers based on frequency of purchases, total spend, and over what period of time this occurred.

In any business, you will always have your loyal rabid customers who will trust almost anything you say and buy anything you sell.

From the above data we want to determine our top 20% of customers buy determining who purchases the most from us over the least period of time.

You can chart your customers over a time period, say 4 months, and from this chart you can see which top 20 customers have purchased the most from you within this 4 month period

We then want to spend the majority of our time and cultivating these customers and building a good relationship and marketing to them.

It’s been proven time and time again that your top 20% of customers are responsible for 80% of your revenue so you make the ultimate best use of your time focusing the majority your efforts on these customers.

In the other side of the coin its worth mentioning that 80% of headaches and support issues and waste of time communications come from your bottom 20% of customers. So you can cut away most of the time wasting tasks by trimming out our bottom customers, giving you more time to focus on your top ones. Some customers are simply not worth the time spent on them!

So simply tracking the above data, you can easily increase your profits by knowing where to focus your attention and marketing efforts/spend, as well as drastically reducing time wasters by trimming out certain customers who are not worth keeping on.

This is simply a way to increase your conversion rate on back end offers. You conversion rate is simply the % of customers you make an offer to, that accept the offer and proceed with the purchase.

For example, as a fitness professional who offers a group class training session (such as spinning class) as well as one on one training, you can offer all your group class students 20% discount on your one on one training simply because they are already in your group class.

Discounts are great, and people always want to save a buck where they can.

I would recommend first recommending an additional service or product to existing customers without a discount. Track the conversion you receive over 3 months and the additional profit generated.

Then offer the same product at a discount and record you conversion and additional profit.

In most cases your conversion will be higher with the discount then without, but if it is not high enough, the revenue you loose offering the discount may put the total profit generated below what was generated at the lower conversion, but without the discount.

You should always track results, conversion, profits and test test test test offers and discounts until you reach the highest profit to discount ratio.

At this point I’m going to stress something very important. You always need to track results, conversion and profits so you can accurately gauge the results you receive from your marketing efforts.

If you don’t do this you could be wasting your time for minimal results, or even do your business harm. Its very easy to do this, so there is no excuse not to, as it has direct effect on your bottom line.

Go here for an article on marketing tracking and metrics.

Next we will discuss service plans.