What is your list or database? Who and what exactly belongs on it? Where do you put it? What are you supposed to do with it once you have it? How does it actually make your business more money? All very common sources of confusion for people new to professional sales and marketing.
It isn’t always as sexy as other pieces, but make no mistake, the dollars are definitely in the data. With a few easy steps you will be on your way to turning neglected business cards into real revenue. Surprisingly, 80% of businesses and the self-employed either don’t have a functional list or are using theirs wrong. Which is unfortunate as it’s one of the most versatile and productive marketing tools they’ve got
For many business owners and marketers, there are four primary contact types they will need for a strong database: leads, customers, affiliates, and partners.
A “list” or “database” is a lot more than just your digital Rolodex where professional contact info is kept, but conceptually that’s a good place to start if this is new to you.
Some of the basics you will want to collect on your list include:
Names
Company names
Phone numbers
Email addresses
Physical addresses
Sales notes
But you will also want to begin to include other data points such as:
Order history
Date met
“Lead source”
Social media info
Birthday
“Sales stage”
Depending on your industry, you will want to be on the lookout for different specific types of information to help your sales efforts be more proactive, these are “data fields.” If you work with teams for big businesses you may want to document how many employees your contact has. If you help small businesses scale, you may want to document their annual revenue. A clothing store may want to keep gender or clothing size on hand. These extra pieces of information will help you maintain a more intimate relationship with your valuable contacts over time, so whenever you can collect more info, you absolutely should.
Lucky's Pro Tip: More information is always better, so document everything you can - as long as it’s generated ethically and kept safely in one place.