Skilled marketers spend approximately 51 percent of their marketing budget on data-driven marketing because it is six times more profitable than traditional marketing tactics. Given this, you’ll be missing out on big opportunities if you don’t begin working on your database marketing right at this moment.
It’s alright if you don’t know how it works. In this post, we’ve explored the concept of database marketing and how database marketing puts your best information to use in complete detail.
Let’s get started!
What is database marketing?
In simple words, database marketing refers to the practice of collecting the data of existing customers and potential customers and using those to personalize your marketing strategies. You could be collecting their phone numbers, email addresses, names, addresses, transaction histories, URL journeys, etc. Now, you can use this data to personalize their buying experience if you’re an eCommerce store or your emails and other campaigns if you’re a service/product-based business.
It differs from traditional marketing in terms of personalization. In traditional marketing, you use ads, brochures, catalogs, and other general marketing material that communicates your business to the audience. It doesn’t sell your business to your audience. It doesn’t necessarily convert.
Top 3 benefits of database marketing
Database marketing is a demanding type of marketing. You’ll have to invest a lot of your effort and budget in data collection, sorting, and filtering. But it will be worth it because you’ll get to the customers that really need you in the long run.
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Customer segmentation
As a business, you might have different types of customers. You cannot cater to all of their needs with just one marketing message. For example, if you design an email that sells bags on your eCommerce store to the recipient, it will hit differently for those who are looking forward to buying a bag. But it will be useless for people who do not need a bag at the moment.
In light of this, database marketing can help make your marketing more effective. It can help you divide your audience into groups and direct relevant sales messages to each group.
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Enhanced customer support
Segmented data also allows you to enhance customer support. Since you know your user’s journey, you will be better aware of their problems. You can use this information to propose better solutions. In this way, the quality of your customer service improves significantly.
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Reach out to customers directly
Another great benefit of database marketing is the fact that you get directly connected with your customers. Instead of sending out general messages to the masses, you can connect on a 1:1 basis and make it all about them.
How to develop a database marketing strategy
Database marketing strategy is specific to each business. It depends on your business goals. But generally, you can approach the process by implementing the following steps:
Step 1: Identify your target audience
Determine your target audience. This could be imaginary data. It should be a product of your own brainstorming and experience from your business. You should know their job, title, nature of life, pain points, etc.
Step 2: Bring your team together
At this point, you need to figure out what you are going to do with the data you collect. And in this process, you’ll need a collective effort from all your departments. Determine what information each department can acquire, and once you have it what will each department be doing with it?
Step 3: Choose software to collect and manage data
Now, choose a software that can help you collect the required data. It could be any lead generation tool. Acquire relevant data (customer demographics) and store it in an easy-to-use database. Make sure all of your team has access to the database so they can make the best use.
Also, ensure that the software you use automatically updates existing user profiles, sorts data, and keeps a backup. To keep all your data organized and well-sorted, we recommend using a custom database development company. Along with collecting and sorting your data most beneficially, a custom database development company will also promise you top-notch security, which is essential since your audience is trusting you with their data.
Case study: headless eCommerce
Out of all industries, the eCommerce industry needs database marketing solutions more than anyone. That’s because eCommerce stores primarily sell products. It’s a one-time purchase and not a subscription-based plan. This means they’ve to invest heavily in creating a closed-loop marketing funnel.
Database marketing can help eCommerce companies collect data about their customers’ current needs. And they can update their store accordingly. Now, note that updating eCommerce stores is not that easy unless you have a headless eCommerce site. A headless eCommerce site means you separate the front end from the back end, meaning if you have to make any minor changes or if you need to personalize the customer experience, you can do that easily.
How to put the information to use
Here are some practical suggestions on how to put the collected information to use:
- Create personalized and segmented email campaigns
- Create intent-targeted (instead of area-targeted) social media campaigns
- Create communities based on common interests. Bring your customers together.
- Offer discounts based on created carts
- Conduct focused surveys to determine how you can improve the quality of your service or product.
You can also use the collected data to identify the friction-causing points and steps in the buying process.
Final thoughts
Database marketing can help you turn the tables for good. Just make sure you put enough thought into the data you collect and how you use it. Also, make sure you refresh your data and keep it regularly updated. If your customers have changed their email addresses, phone numbers, names, and other details, there’s no point investing all your time in that data. So, make sure that the data you collect is up-to-date.
