Use Your Customer List

By Steve Gillman

Before you can use it of course, you have to have a customer list. Fortunately both compiling and using such a list has become easier than ever in the last couple decades, thanks to easy-to-use computer programs. But what makes a list of your customers so valuable, and how do you use it to increase your revenue and profits? Read on...

One way you can directly use your customer list is to sell it. Renting one is more common, actually, You agree to give your list to another business for a mailing they want to do (preferably to promote a product or service that is complementary to your own--to make it of value to your customers--but not directly competing with what you offer). For more on that, read the page: Sell Customers to Other Businesses.

But there is a potentially more profitable use of your customer list. It is contacting previous customers to remind them of your products or services. This is a way to increase the frequency of sales to existing clients.

The ways in which you implement this strategy will vary according to the nature of what you sell. If, for example, you have a garbage collection business, you might offer a spring clean-up of larger items to existing customers. If you clean offices, you could look at your list of customers who are not on a regular schedule, and call those who have not used your service in more than a few months, to offer a discount for cleaning jobs done this month. Something as simple as that can generate thousands of dollars in additional sales from a few hours on the phone--but only if you have a list with phone numbers.

Let's look briefly at examples from online marketing. many sellers of e-books have found that traffic generated by paid advertising only converts at a 1% rate, meaning only one in 100 visitors to the sales page buys the e-book. On the other hand, those who have already bought their product may convert at 10% for the next e-book they write--and it costs them nothing to get these customers. All they have to do is mail a promotion to them--if they have that list.

If you don't have a customer list, start one. Collect whatever information you need to effectively market to those customers. Online, that means getting email addresses. Offline it can mean phone numbers or home addresses. Once you have the list, start using it. Remind your customers of the value of what you offer. If a carpet cleaner averages a gross profit of $100 per job, and he can increase the frequency of visits from once-every-two-years to once-per-year for 100 customers by using his list, he nets an extra $10,000 in annual profits--something to think about.

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