The Digital Corner

“CRM’s original strategy was to help companies better manage and understand their relationship with their customers,” AMR Research analyst Kevin Scott (on CRMDaily.com). “Somewhere along the line, the acronym became really hot.”

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) has become a larger player in strategic planning with the demands of higher return on investment in a tighter market. CRM starts with the information that you have already collected from your customers. Information such as: What did they purchase? What information drew the most interest? Where are they located? What time do they browse your website?

Effective CRM programs consist of 5 basic parts: Profiling, Targeting, Timing, Delivery and Tracking.

:::: Profiling ::::

Profiles can be demographically or behaviorally based, and the difference is very important to your business. This allows you to create a customer profile around the goal of selling a product/service or increasing website traffic, but what is a customer profile? Here are 2 kinds of customer profiles:

• Customer is single, has no children, lives in an upscale neighborhood, reads the New York Times, and surfs the Internet at home.

• Customer visited the site daily for 3 months, but has not visited the site the past 2 weeks.

The first profile is demographic, offering a set of characteristics. The second profile is behavior-based, involving what the customer is actually doing.

Which seems more important to you?

Importance is contingent on the goal of the CRM program. Is the goal to sell a product or service to the customer or to increase visits to the website? For a company selling a product or service, make an offer that is relevant to the consumer’s lifestyle. If the goal is to increase the website traffic, research the most popular pages and what changes increased or decrease repeat visitors.

:::: Targeting and Timing ::::

Segment your customers by interest or demographically. Offers must be as relevant to customer’s needs and/or wants as possible. This will increase the probability of action. Timing is equally as important as relevance. Knowing when to offer a deal or change your website content determines your ROI on your CRM campaign. When deciding your target and timing these questions should be addressed:

• Who do I e-mail offers to? When do I e-mail them? How often?

• Should I promote to some customers more often than others?

• How much incentive should I provide to get a customer to take action?

• How can I tell when I’m losing a customer?

• What can I expect in future sales from my existing customers?

:::: Delivery and Tracking ::::

Delivering the right message at the right time in the right form. This is the goal of every marketer when building media schedules and promotions. Plan to answer the following questions when viewing your analytics:

• What is the most effective channel for conversions for my business?

• What is the percentage of online customers that convert online?

• What incentives push users to a more cost effective transactional channel? 

Balancing these issues will add a tremendous amount of value and dollars to your bottom line.