As one of the most important marketing weapons for every small business is to use and maintain different sales leads databases. This is databases where your business will store all collected information about your current and potential customers. But, the question is how to start when you want to create a leads database? What is a leads database? How to build strong leads database to skyrocket your sales numbers?
What do you want to know about your customers after your marketing efforts?
All marketing activities that you are implementing in your small business relies on the quality of your leads database. You send letters, e-mails, use telemarketing techniques and many other marketing tactics to bring fresh customers into your sales funnel. Because of that, you want to know about each person that you contact in the past as a part of your marketing efforts answers the following questions:
- What type of marketing activity is performed?
- When is that specific activity performed?
- What are impressions or outcomes from that specific marketing activity?
Sales leads databases
This marketing weapon is a tool for all other marketing weapons you will use for your business. If you use sales leads databases, they will help you to extract the maximum from all your other marketing efforts.
Now, we need to answer the question: what is a sales leads database?
The sales leads databases are simple tables in which you will record all your current and future customers. But, it is not everything. There you will also record your customer’s behavior related to all of your marketing activities with them. In this table, you will need to note the date when they were contacted, their reaction and everything that can bring increasing the marketing performances of your business.
Building a list is the basis for building the successful business. When you start growing your list, or different sales leads databases, you will see positive growth of your sales numbers and your business at all.
What Do You Need to Include in Your Sales Leads Databases?
The quality of your list with leads will rely on what you will include in the list. What are most important things you will need to include in your sales leads databases?
You must include at least these 6 elements:
- Name and Surname or Business Name if your business is B2B.
- Contact details – postal address, phone number, and e-mail.
- Marketing activities or tactics your company have used for the persons.
- Reaction of the person after implementation of specific marketing activity.
- Is that person becoming a customer or is she buy something from your business?
- What will be the future marketing activities or steps you will need to take?
In such a way, you will have evidence about every person in your database. You will know what your business has done about them, what need to be done and what is the experience of your potential customer with your different marketing activities. This will help you to make right decisions about every current and potential customer.
How to Start Building and Create a Your Sales Leads Databases?
The most difficult part in building a list is starting to build a list. Here are 8 different ideas of list building:
- Use your address book and put all your friends and cousins into the database that you think will need your products and services.
- Use different directories and find individuals or businesses from your target market. Put the contact details into the database.
- Ask each person that will come to buy something from you to give you their contact details. You need to give him some specific benefits if they do that, because they are not willing to share personal data without some benefits as a free newsletter or discount for next buying.
- Give some type of awards when persons come to you and give you their contact details as a motivational weapon. You can use forms that must be filled when persons come to take their gift.
- Take business cards from everyone and place the contact details into your sales leads databases.
- Open ad directories and find persons that have problems which your business can solve.
- Use social networks to start building your list.
- Think creatively about different ways that will increase your leads database.
Start building your list, but systematically with the right planning and success will come.
