Here's how you can build a powerful marketing database at bargain-basement prices.
Marketing
Build a powerful marketing database at bargain-basement prices
At Seko Worldwide Inc., the process of building a marketing database started quietly enough. Three years ago the freight forwarder's marketing vice-president bought a copy of Act! and began playing with it on his laptop. "He thought it was the greatest thing," recalls Cathy Moran, Seko's director of sales, training, and support. Seko's president soon caught the bug, and so did a few salespeople.
Soon, what had started as an experiment turned into an essential. Today most Seko sales reps don't leave home without their laptop database. They come to appointments loaded with routing information and historical sales data--what, where, how often, and how much a customer ships. "Today's customer is more sophisticated and technology-driven," says Moran. "We had to do this."
"This"--building a true marketing database--is something many companies think can be done only with a big budget and lots of complex software. Not anymore. Seko's not even a small business: the Elk Grove, Ill., company's sales have climbed to around $106 million from $79 million three years ago, and 100 of its 150 sales reps now use the Act! program. But even at that size, Seko has found that an inexpensive contact-management program like Act! can satisfy the company's need for a marketing database.
Seko is not alone. While contact managers are often portrayed as the poor man's solution to sales automation, programs such as GoldMine, Maximizer, Sharkware, Microsoft Outlook, and Act! can be used to build a fairly potent database, at prices starting at about $99 for a single user and $650 for a five-user network license. Contact managers' implicit promise--that anyone can turn a knack for networking into hard sales--has sent entrepreneurs racing to the computer stores. Still, buying the software isn't enough. In too many companies, the programs end up as souped-up Rolodexes or, worse, just gather pixel dust on someone's computer. Why?
"Databases tend to be a mystery to many people," explains database specialist Linda Keating of the JL Technical Group Inc., in Palo Alto, Calif. "They know the company jewels are stored in it," she says, but don't know how to get the information out. However, experts say the latest versions of several leading contact managers grease the way--despite some technical glitches. For example, if you have salespeople out in the field, you can use"remote synchronization" to send leads and updates to them automatically and then receive their responses at regular intervals.
But technology has never been the entire problem. Even the experts can't agree on exactly what a marketing database should do. Some of them tout its power to sort leads."It's a system for keeping track of people and communicating with them," argues Jeffrey Mayer, author of Act! 3 for Windows for Dummies. "You've got all these names, but you've got to do something with them to turn them into prospects and customers." Just as critical is the ability to know when to move on. "By reading the documented diary of all my communications with someone," Mayer notes, "I can say, 'Why am I spending any more time on this jerk?' "
That's one approach. Other marketing experts focus more on what a database can do for existing client relationships. "A marketing database's customer file should be like a one-page action plan for the customer," says Bob Dorf, a managing partner at Marketing 1:1 Inc., the Stamford, Conn., relationship-marketing company founded by the authors of the best-seller The One to One Future: Building Relationships One Customer at a Time. "It has details like 'Likes to play golf; don't call in the morning,' but it's structured much more around sequentially timed steps toward creating a better relationship."
Confused? That's why one of the first steps in building a marketing database is to define its mission. Perhaps you don't have a sales force pounding the pavement but want instead to use your database to bolster customer service. Take Medimetrix Inc., an Inc. 500 company providing health-care consulting services in Cleveland. The $32-million company chose Microsoft Outlook to log, among other things, the results of a 50-question end-of-job survey, and a follow-up communications plan for current customers.
After you've decided how you want to use the database, walk through your selling process. "I thought I was teaching people how to use a program," recalls Seko's Moran, "but first we had to define how leads come in, how we get an initial appointment, and what happens next--and that took a while."
One of the last steps is, of course, to choose the software--if you don't have it already. Dorf, who uses GoldMine, argues that "the software these days is good enough that it almost doesn't matter what you choose." Still, each package differs. Consider bringing in a consultant to demo a number of programs--using real data--so you can make comparisons.
After you make a selection, pay for a tailor. "The software is so cheap, it's definitely smart to spend $2,000 on a local consultant who can help you customize the program for your industry," says Dorf. "You're playing with a central asset. This isn't just a software purchase; it's a way of doing business."
Benchmark: What Do You Track?
KIM WHITTAKER, president
BABY FAIRE INC., Winchester, Mass.
The business: Consumer shows for new parents; 4 employees; $650,000 in sales
Contact manager: Act! 2
Size of database: 6,800 customers and leads
What it contains: "Objections, or why someone said no; whether a prospect is local or national; a one-sentence business description. I also ask customers what we should do differently next year. In the notes field, I keep all sorts of miscellaneous information and do key-word searches; I track news on a company, so I have a reason to call back a prospect. Because of what I do, I also enter information on customers' kids."
CHARLES FORBES, principal
EARNINGS PERFORMANCE GROUP INC., Short Hills, N.J.
The business: Consultant to banks; 100 employees
Contact manager: GoldMine 3.2
Size of database: 3,000 customers and leads
What it contains: "We use the customer-history file extensively. It gives us the anatomy of a sale, an up-to-two-year running dialogue of all appointments, letters, and proposals. We also use the database to measure sales productivity--for example, a salesperson's calling pattern. With 10 sales reps around the country, the remote-synchronization feature is really important for us. We get weekly updates on all sales activities, and we can see what our reps' calendars look like."
