Break Up Your Customer Database

You have made the decision to nurture, wonderful! One of the starting points is to look at how you are going to nurture. And the best place to find them is your database. As you look at your business database, you realize everyone is lumped into one big list. You do not have them in categories.
All businesses have at least three types of relationships they need to manage: past customers, current customers, and prospects. Most companies treat each category differently.

Why is each Nurture marketing group treated differently?

Sending the same message to your existing or past customers as to your prospects, would not make much sense to either list. Receiving an email stating: “We’ve missed you, come visit us again” wouldn’t make much sense to the prospect list.

If you are trying to woo prospects, you may decide to send them an extra-big, one-time only coupon to entice them to try your products. Since your current customers are already buying at your normal prices, consider offering them a different coupon of a different value.

It makes sense to break out your database into different groups so you can customize messages to each group. You can then see which marketing messages work best for each group.

While you may decide to have a generic message or newsletter that goes out to the group at large, consider a special message for each group.

Here are some examples:

• To your current customers: ask for referrals or testimonials on services or particular products
• To your past customers: woo them back by offering them a coupon or a discount to buy again
• To your prospective customers: offer them a money-back guaranteer
The biggest mistake you could make in the Nurture program is not nurturing your clients. The second largest mistake is nurturing all clients in the same way!

Take database and break it down into groups, and then decide how you want to treat each one. Once you’ve done this, you can start on your nurture marketing campaign.