FIND NEW CUSTOMERS. GAIN SOLID LEADS. GROW THE BUSINESS. It’s a lot like digging for gold. A business knows the customers are out there, but are they “digging” in the right place? Thanks to a valuable new partnership with a leader in data services, the Greater Killeen Chamber of Commerce is now able to bring cost-effective, highly targeted direct marketing to every member in and around Central Texas.
What is direct marketing and why is it so powerful? Direct marketing takes a guided approach to finding new and better customers for any given business. No longer does a business have to “spray” an entire zip code with mailers and “pray” they will receive customers from their efforts. We are able to use various audience propensities, geographic boundaries, demographics, interests in purchasing and more to help find customers who will be a good fit for each business.
If a business knows their best customer is a 30- to 40-year-old man who owns a home, has school-age children and is passionate about the outdoors, then a campaign can be created to market directly to customers like him. If an insurance business is looking for new customers, a campaign can be created to find families with more than one vehicle and a teenager in the home approaching driving age. A new business opens and wants to extend a special offer to all the new homeowners in the area. The possibilities are endless! This kind of direct information makes marketing in a selected environment very powerful and effective.
What if a business does not know what their best customer looks like? No problem. The Chamber can identify these customers by mining the business’ customer database to get a sense of what these customers look like and the features, demographics and interests they have in common. After mining through the customer data, those characteristics are used to build a specific target audience who are ready to be golden customers.
Once a business’ best customers are identified, how do we reach them? That’s the beautiful part — market where the customers are! Marketing campaigns can be targeted to direct mail and phone or through digital campaigns like e-mail, mobile campaigns and even various social media sites. Now businesses can reach the same audience they already target with direct mail, but reach them multiple times for a lot less money.
Besides analyzing customer data and finding new prospects through a targeted approach, we can also help keep customer lists current by cleaning the lists and keeping customer lists free of bad data. This will decrease wasted marketing spend and increase the return on your direct marketing investment. Data Clean-up services ensure mail is being sent to the correct address and that the audience hasn’t moved.
The best mining tool for finding the golden customer? Thankfully, it’s not a pick ax, or even a lot of sweat and tears, but the Greater Killeen Chamber of Commerce’s Data Services program. This great new partnership is ready to help businesses reach across the city or across the country to find the gold that is waiting.
Written by Rebekah Moon, Director of Investor Services, Greater Killeen Chamber of Commerce
Published in the Greater Killeen Business Quarterly 2015 Economic Outlook & Fort Hood Guide