I’ve been an advocate of database development and maintenance for a long time, but when I tested mine with co-hosting Sydney Business Month, I was reminded of crucial elements.
Here are five core databse aspects I found essential recently:
- Check your segmentationAre there gaps in your segmentation? Have people been coded correctly and is the segmentation relevant, or does it need a rethink? Is it time to make over the segmentation?
A good segmentation is excellent for finding out how many people in your existing database could be suitable for a new product or service and to then let them know you’ve developed it, but only if the segmentation is accurate. Much of the awareness raising for Sydney Business Month was with our own networks, but we wanted personal communication to only go to people who might be interested. We needed to be letting small business owners in Sydney know about it. Not those who’ve closed their business and are now employed, not those who’ve moved away from Sydney.
- Do you still know each other?Do you have contacts entered in your database that you’ve not connected with since they were added? Time to decide if they should be contacted or deleted. You need to be confident they’re people you know and they know you, especially if you’re planning to do a survey or develop a strategy based on the contacts.
If you go to a networking event, then add them to your database, but don’t follow up or enter how you met them, then it is very difficult to follow up later. Also, the response rate to a survey is increased when there is better engagement.
- Current and accurateAre the contact details up to date? If business owners have closed or sold their business or the person has changed jobs, then their relationship with you will be different. If they’ve moved, location based analysis and strategy developed related to that won’t be accurate.
- Connected in other placesFind those contacts on LinkedIn and Twitter. Locate the business on Facebook. Connecting with contacts in those places will allow you to improve your relationship with them and how you could help each other. If you see many of them are part of a group, you could also join and participate.
Databases locally are important but interconnecting them with social media adds much more depth to what you have.
- Explore ways new ways you can connectOnce you’ve segmented your contacts, communicated with them, know they’re current and accurate, and connected in other places, you can think laterally about new ways to connect with them.
Is there a way you can touch base with them that is unexpected, new, special, not sales focused?
- Such as company birthday cards to business owners on the anniversary of them starting their business.
- A gift that creates the same emotional outcome you would like your clients to have as a result of doing business with you, Tribe Research has a clear headed room spray as good research should give you a clear headed direction for your business. What emotion would you like your clients to have and how can that be created another way.
Sydney Business Month was an excellent reason for me to reconnect with people I’d lost touch with and I found people who’d moved, changed roles, and focus of their business.
