LAB Marketing

It has recently come to my attention that many smaller organisations, all of whom will have either a product or a service to offer, do not always have a useful database of contacts or leads to campaign to.

We are not talking huge investment in large, and often complicated CRM systems, but simply having a spreadsheet or Microsoft Access document (such as template Personal Contact Manager) which contains the right contacts is sufficient to drive your business forward.

It is worth investing some time in staff resources to research these contacts, and you can use some of these methods:

Purchase Database Lists – often expensive and you cannot be guaranteed how up to date the records will be, and it is often difficult to find a suitable list if your product/service is quite specialised.  You do also need to be familiar with the laws around spamming here too https://ico.org.uk/for-the-public/online/spam-emails/ as with any email campaigns.

Using Linked In – particularly useful for B2B marketing.  Find groups relevant to your product/service to join and engage with and establish contacts to connect with.  You can then begin to share news and announcements about your business.

Market Research – this method is much more time consuming but will be a great exercise for competitor analysis, whilst identifying the right contacts and building up your database.  You will need to ensure the staff given this role, know your product/service well to understand who maybe the right contact.  Much of the market research can be done using the Internet, where you can find websites and events relevant to you.

Networking – this is also a key activity, and particularly useful again for B2B marketing but also localised businesses who deal in a small geographical area.  You can attend networking events, often run by local Chamber of Commerce, business parks and councils.  You can also attend suitable events/conferences to promote your product/service and collect business cards/contacts that way.

Subscription based marketing – this can be another great way to build your database, by asking potential customers to subscribe to receive something on your website, such as a regular newsletter, brochures, emails about new products/services, competitions or anything else you have which maybe valuable to others.

Social media – As well as using Linked In, it is also important to consider the other forms of social media such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest and the use of these will depend on your business demographics.  Connect with relevant organisations and individuals and promote your product/service through there.

I hope this gives you some insight into building a CRM.  It is key once you have this, to update your contacts regularly and use the database to store information and previous contact with customers.