What Information Is in Your Database?
by MBA and MBA
Centurion
Consulting Group recommends using databases which can provide a wealth of information to
assist you in allocating your marketing resources. Unfortunately, many firms don’t
track the data and/or don’t recognize the value of the data.
Referral
Sources and Prospects
Take,
for example, a firm with 1,000 names in their database. Over 98% of the names are clients
with very few prospective clients or referral sources in the database. Yet, the prospects
and referral names should be receiving newsletters, invitations to seminars, etc., not
just the clients.
Industry
By tracking industry affiliation, you can easily determine the percentage of
names in a specific industry. When we analyzed the database of one of our law firms, we
determined that 30% of the clients were in post production and that percentage was
increasing by 25% per year during the past three years. The firm had no idea that post
production was fast becoming a "specialty" area for them. They began to market
to post production companies.
When you track the industry of a referral source, you can identify the industry
source for referrals. For example, you may discover that 75% of referrals are from CPAs.
In that case, you want to focus on marketing to CPAs.
Revenues and Employees
By tracking the revenue of your clients and the number of people they employ,
you’ll be able to segment your largest clients. This information will help you target
these clients for additional services. Generally, larger companies need more services.
Action
Step:
With
Microsoft’s Access capabilities, you can easily develop a database to track
information about your clients, prospects and referral sources. This data will help you in
allocating resources for future business development. You’ll be able to target
specific industries or specific size of clients. |