Wednesday 28 August 2013

Building a relationship, not just a database!

You would be hard pressed to find a website these days that doesn’t try to capture your details and add you to their database. Maybe they lure you with the idea of a VIP club, or promise exclusive specials. Maybe you get a free eBook or tips sent to your inbox. Or perhaps you can’t buy anything from their website without adding your details or even enter the website at all?!

As a user, it can be a real pain can’t it?! But what about from the perspective of the business? Generating a database of potential customers is incredibly valuable and being able to ‘speak’ to this clientele regularly is a fantastic way to grow your business and generate more sales.

Many people are happy to sign up to a database, if they can see the value in it for them! This is why specials, free downloads and free information will often work to grow this database for you… But if you don’t deliver, after a while, many customers will inevitably unsubscribe and get more frustrated with your business (definitely NOT what you intended to achieve, ay?!)

How can you prevent this?

Let’s give credit to our customers, they are more savvy and in tune with motivations than perhaps we realise. Therefore, if you hook them in by offering giveaways, and then just sell-sell-sell, they aren’t going to be impressed.

A better way to think about your database is like a list of your business’s friends… People who have opted in to keep in touch with you. This is a gift! So don’t focus on selling, focus on building a relationship with these people. Tell them about what’s been happening within your business, give them updates, specials, recent changes, staff changes and more. Make them feel part of the family – and with the growing relationship, they will be more inclined to buy again from you.

At Digerati we have a campaign system that allows you to easily keep in contact with your clients. You can email a whole database in a simple to use system, and see all kinds of reports and data. You can also integrate this with your website, so your customers get added to various lists without the need to do data entry.

Get in touch with us if you would like to know more about building relationships with your clients!