MarTech Basics #4: Keeping Track of Customers
MarTech Basics #4: Keeping Track of Customers
No Awkward Reintroductions
I bought some gym shoes recently.
I got word-of-mouth recommendations from friends, researched online, and found the perfect pair.
The list price was higher than I was ready to spend, so I signed up for the website loyalty program to get a discount code.
Once I got the email with the promo code, I bought the shoes.
Success for the brand, right?
Well, kind of…
I received near-daily emails from the same company offering me the same pair of shoes I bought. I finally unsubscribed from the email list.
They had my email to unify the purchase record.
They had product recommendations to send me.
With both, the marketing department still didn’t meet my needs as a customer.
I wanted them to send me relevant product recommendations. Instead I got unwanted, irrelevant emails.
If they had recommended good lifting socks or shorts at the same time, I would have spent more.
What Helps Keep Track of Customers?
There’s one tool that’s a requirement for a business of any size—the CRM. Don’t worry if you don’t have a fancy software suite yet. A CRM doesn’t have to be a SAAS tool—a physical order calendar with notes is a fine place to start.
CRM stands for "customer relationship management."
A CRM is a tool that helps businesses manage their interactions with existing and potential new customers.
With a CRM, you can make sure you’re giving the right attention to each customer based on your understanding of their needs. With personalized attention, you can lead customers to see how your company value match their desires.
For example, let's say…
we're a small coffee shop that's been in business for a few years.
We have a good customer base of regulars and we want to launch a new promotion for International Coffee Day1. With a CRM, we can segment our customer base and send targeted messages to different groups of customers.
We might send customers who have ordered a latte in the past month a coupon for their most ordered pastry.
By providing a personalized offer, we can make sure customers feel seen and will return to our shop.
Feel free to comment with any good CRM use cases you’ve seen before.
Another use case could be…
the same coffeeshop and you get a lot of foot traffic from a nearby walking trail.
Your business will naturally follow the natural ebbs and flows of the weather.
You might segment your customer base into a few groups:
The “Die Hards” who come when they want coffee no matter the weather
The “Fair Weather Friends” who only enjoy coming to the shop when they can also walk on the trail
The “Hey Look, Coffee’s” who don’t have an apparent preference for when they visit the shop beyond convenience
Sending out coupons for customers who already plan to buy is throwing money away.
Accurately place each customer into their appropriate group. Don’t shoot yourself in the foot by throwing profit away to win sales that you already expect.2
When you have a CRM, you’ll be able to:
Send the Fair Weather Friends reminders about Rainy Day Discounts. The goal is to convert some of the Fair Weather Friends into Die Hards by making a shop visit part of their weekly habit
Post social media ads about how fun a caffeinated walk with friends can be when a sunny Saturday is coming up. Targeting the Hey Look, Coffee’s and similar lookalike audiences with those reminders can make them into Fair Weather Friends
CRMs Are Essential
Overall, a CRM is an essential tool for any business that wants to build strong, personal, customer relationships.
You have to know where you’ve been to know if you’re going the right direction; a CRM keeps a log of where you’ve been before.
By keeping track of customer interactions and providing personalized marketing messages, you can improve customer satisfaction and loyalty.
With the right CRM, you’ll better understand your customers and build the foundation for your future MarTech mastery.
Very Important Date: October 1
Don’t think this mean that you should skip on a loyalty program or discount. Loyal customers are extremely valuable. But don’t give someone who purchases only a pastry and coffee each morning a week’s worth of free pastries and coffees to get them into the store—you’d be spending money to get something you already have