Marketing for top managers Igor Lipsits
Idea #38 What customer information should you have in your database?
What customer information should you have in your database?
When discussing idea 37, we talked about the importance of per-client profitability analysis. This analysis helps to identify those customers who contribute the most to value growth. this business and which we must especially try to keep for the future. But how do you keep these profitable customers? The first step towards solving this problem can be formulated in the style of biblical commandments: “Know your client!”
But what does this mean in practice, what should a top manager require from his employees when creating a customer database? The experience of implementing partnership marketing technologies (CRM) shows that it is desirable to enter four types of customer data into such a database (Fig. 38-1).
Semantic information . This is information about each customer, including name (for legal entities- all their registration data), address and demographic data (for legal entities - data on the type of business). Semantic information also includes all current and historical customer data. Some of this information may be provided by your sales agents, and some must be collected from open sources your marketing service.
episodic information include a description of the entire experience of the firm's contacts with this client throughout a series of transactions and negotiations. How many times have you sold this product to this customer in the past 6 months, year, etc.? What preferences or complaints have we found in past contacts? This means that your sales staff must be charged with official duties enter information into the database after each contact with a particular client - approximately the same as the criminal investigation operatives did after each meeting with their informants. It is best if a special form is formed in your database for this - “Business Contact Information Card”. The set of its fields will be set by the employees of the marketing department of your company, taking into account the specifics of your business, and the filling should be prerequisite processing the transaction and receiving commission on it.
You can link to the activity in collecting information about customers and the reward system for your employees in excess of commissions. The only thing that cannot be neglected is the accumulation of such information. Among other things, this is simply dangerous, since there is always a threat that a sales employee will quit and you will suddenly find that he either took all the information about customers stored in his personal books with him - as a gift to a new employer, or it is simply nowhere was not fixed - and now you need to learn everything about this group of clients from the very beginning.
hypothetical information. This is information obtained from external sources and including, for example, data on the entire consumer industry or data from consumer surveys. Such information contains additional or derived facts about consumer preferences. To obtain it, special marketing research or buy materials from previously completed surveys. This also includes materials of macroeconomic statistics that make it possible to predict a possible change in the composition of this group of clients, its income or the situation in sales markets in the near future, if we are talking about customers in the B2B market. For example, in the fashion market, such information is prepared by special trend bureaus that regularly issue dossiers on where will he go fashion in the coming season.
Valuable information. This is information about the interests or values of the client. It can be obtained through direct communication with customers or through specially structured surveys. Collecting such information (especially in the B2B market) is undoubtedly the most difficult task, and your sales representatives must be specially taught how to solve it. The task is greatly facilitated if your company can create a trusting partnership with the client, when your specialists begin to regularly contact clients, helping them solve problems, as they say, “on the spot”.
Best of all, firms that do business as system integrators have now learned this. These firms were able to move their business from the plane of selling computer science and software product into the plane of solving the final problem of the consumer - creating information system firms. And in this logic, their specialists began to enter into consumer firms, having received constant contact with the client “from the inside”, and this opens up the opportunity to understand what the client really needs. What does it give? What is most valuable for any firm is the duration of contact and the offer to the market of only those goods or services that will be purchased. No wonder, as A. Karachinsky, head of the largest Russian system integrator company IBS, noted in one of his speeches: “Informatization projects, once started, never end.” It is clear why: while only tasks were being solved for the client, his business went further - now he needs something else, and the partner company will be the first to know about it and is happy to help immediately (not without benefit for itself, of course).
It is, of course, more difficult to achieve such a business organization in the consumer market. There, for this, special marketing research is needed, for example, with the help of a joint (decombination) analysis - conjoint analysis. This method, with the help of specially structured questionnaires, makes it possible to quite clearly explore the system of buyers' preferences regarding the properties of goods, that is, to understand what is usually denoted by the vague term "tastes".
In conclusion, we note that the formation of such a structured customer database is extremely useful, but difficult and expensive. Therefore, it is not advisable to introduce such a technology of working with clients throughout the entire client base at once, but it is necessary to do this gradually - from the most important and promising clients for the company, those that we were able to identify using the methodology described in the discussion of idea 37.
From the book Marketing. And now the questions! author Mann Igor Borisovich From book More money from your business: hidden methods to increase profits author Levitas Alexander From the book 49 laws of sales author Mattson David“You must have a reason why you are saying this.” When Bob's interlocutor said, “We already have a provider for this service,” Bob responded by listing the advantages of his company that made it stand out from the rest. Most of the items on this list did not have
From the book Marketing Arithmetic for CEOs author Mann Igor BorisovichWhat should be the marketing structure in my company? Don't look for the answer to this question in marketing textbooks. Describing divisional, matrix, or functional structures will do nothing. Your business is as individual as your fingerprints, and
From the book Fast-management. Managing is easy if you know how author Nesterov Fedor FedorovichThe army must be busy all the time. Everything in the world is relative. Good and evil, the norm and deviations from it are determined only in relation to some reference value. The fact is that a person does not have an internal absolute reference point, in relation to which he
From the book Management author Tsvetkov A. N.Question 90 Which activity is considered linear and which is hardware? Answer Linear activity is considered to be directly related to the creation and sale of products or services, i.e., activities determined by the mission of the organization. Accordingly, the hardware will be
From the book Psychology as a business. How can a psychologist unwind himself author Chernikov Yury NikolaevichWhat information about the market you should have Competitive environment. You need to understand who already offers services similar to yours. Make a list of competitors - organizations and individuals that are either in your city or offer their services via the Internet. Your
From the book Bureaucracy. Theoretical concepts: tutorial author Kabashov Sergey YurievichShould the state legalize government? State and state power in any historical era played a huge role in society, sometimes becoming above society, alienating from it. This role is also great in modern conditions, which
From the book How to make a business out of a hobby. Monetization of creativity author Tyukhmeneva AnnaThe problem must be real It is impossible to come up with a problem for people, and then convince them that they have it. human problems and provide specific benefits. Do not create a product, and then try to sell it to someone. But
From the book Marketing for Top Managers author Lipsits Igor VladimirovichIdea No. 4 Where should the work of the marketing department in your company begin? As we said when discussing idea 3, marketers should help the company understand it better. competitive advantages- those that she really has today, and those that she needs to have
From the book Development of Leaders. How to understand your management style and communicate effectively with people of other styles author Adizes Itzhak Calderon From the book 101 ideas for growing your business. results latest research efficiency of people and organizations author Weiss Antonio From the book Great Team. What you need to know, do and say to build a great team by Miller Douglas From the book In Healthy Business - healthy mind. How great companies develop immunity to crises by Karlgaard Rich From the book Management Practice by human resourses author Armstrong Michael From the MBA book in 10 days. The most important program of the world's leading business schools author Silbiger Stephen
Data analysis in marketing determines your actions based on the influence of certain factors on the company as a whole. Moreover, you can analyze data both online and offline. Naturally, such an analysis is suitable for any industry.
In this article, you will learn what tasks data analysis in marketing helps to solve, the algorithm for such analysis, and at the end you will find a conclusion on the whole topic.
Why you need data analytics in marketing
Both in my work with clients and in my studies with students of the Synergy University, I never cease to affirm one simple thing. Marketing is primarily working with target data, and not holding creative events or promotions.
Data analysis in marketing allows you to solve a number of important tasks, such as:
- release of a new product;
- entering new markets;
- increasing competitiveness;
- reducing customer churn and so on.
According to its sources, data are of two types - primary and secondary.
Primary data you get it yourself, using the internal resources of the company, or by inviting a third-party agency on a project basis. Such data is collected by your marketers, contractors, press office or in-house analyst.
As a rule, in a small business, the functions of collecting data and further working with them fall on the owner himself. However, this rarely happens in our practice.
secondary data collected and developed not by you. They are published by consulting companies, research centers, government agencies. The main disadvantage when working with secondary data is their availability, which your competitors can take advantage of, as well as not quite prompt placement.
Sometimes data is distinguished by the degree of influence on the company - direct and indirect.
Algorithm for data analysis in marketing
The main tool for collecting and analyzing data in marketing is CRM. It is in such a system that data is stored about your customers, transactions, the number of purchases, the amount and duration of the transaction, the number of hits.
1. Collecting the necessary data
All marketing decisions dance around four sets of data: your customer data, conversion data, average check data, and repeat purchase data.
Customer data — total potential customers (leads) and real ones (i.e. those who at least once bought from you). Customer information should be stored in your CRM system.
Conversion Data show how many people total number visitors completed the target action. For example, 1000 people visit your site per month, 100 of which subscribe to the newsletter. In this case, the conversion is 10%.
Data on the average check is nothing more than the size of the average purchase for a certain period. It (the average bill) is calculated for each product separately.
Finally, repeat purchase data help us understand what products, at what price, in what quantity and after what time our customer purchases.
2. Visualization of primary data
Having collected primary data on the four mandatory groups, someone can immediately count them. I advise you to visualize before starting the analysis. All those indicators that we have are collected in a dashboard (data panel) for visual display. It turns out something similar to the figure below.
For visualization, you can use Excel, extensions for your CRM, or separate tools. For example, Qlik.com.
3. Data analysis
Collecting primary data and displaying it visually is only half the battle. The main task is to correctly analyze the collected indicators.
At the analysis stage, well-known methodologies can be used: six sigma, quantitative analysis (sociologists will understand), targeted customer surveys (so-called sampling), factor analysis, cohort analysis and other tools.
By the way, our colleague Ilya Balakhnin spoke very well about the cohort analysis.
4. Search for dependent relationships
In marketing, the behavior of your customers can be digitized. In other words, translate client solutions into numbers. RFM analysis will help you with this.
This analysis is based on three indicators: R (recency) — prescription; F (frequency) - frequency; M (monetary) - money.
The more time a customer does not buy from you, the less likely it is to return it (R). The same applies to the last two indicators: the less often a client buys from you, the less likely it is that he will still buy something (F). Finally, the lower the amount of the average check for one purchase, the greater the chance that the client will not return to us.
5. Decision making
After analyzing the data, you just have to make a decision, set a goal and choose the tools to achieve it.
We saw that the majority of clients have a small average check, which means it needs to be increased (upsells and cross-sells will help you).
Conclusion
Data analysis in marketing shows the real picture in your business. In fact, analysis is a universal way to answer almost any question: from “Why are we losing half of our customers?” to “How do we implement repeat sales?”
