Turning Data Into Furniture Sales: Tip #6: Create Customer Profiles and Expand Your Reach with Purchased Lists

Furniture World News Desk on 9/26/2015

In a recent blog article on my web site, I shared a three-step system for using customer zip codes to choose your next store location.

A customer’s zip code is a powerful tool because it reveals so much about who your customer is. Not only can you determine a customer’s geographic location, but you can make educated, accurate assumptions about their income level, education, marital status, and lifestyle.

When combined with the rest of your data, a zip code provides a great opportunity to expand your reach and target a customer base that’s ready to buy.

In this article, I’ll show you how to take the zip codes, combine it with other collected information and get even more bang for your data-based buck. We’ll do that by creating customer profiles and using them to purchase targeted marketing mailing lists.

Create customer profiles
Before you can accurately target a new customer base, you must first create profiles for the customers you already have.

Creating a profile based on scoring and clustering will help you clarify which of your customers are most likely to purchase next. It will also help you create ideal customer models you want to acquire in a new market or zip code.

Start out by segmenting customer profiles into the more typical categories such as ‘frequent shopper’, the ‘spender shopper’, the ‘best shopper’, and so on.

For example, if you create a profile for a ‘big spender’ shopper who only purchases once every 1-3 years, you’ll be able to see when they last bought and avoid wasting money marketing to them every three months.

Use profiles to purchase acquisition lists
Once you have clearly defined customer profiles and have selected a list vendor, you can use those profiles to acquire targeted marketing lists – right down to a specific zip code.

The idea is to acquire new customers who are strong matches for the customer profiles you’ve already created. Instead of reinventing the wheel, you want to take what’s already working in your marketing, and expand your reach to a new group of people who are the same, demographically speaking, as the customers you already have.

Take care when purchasing lists to specify customers you do NOT wish to buy – for example, your own customers!

When Massa & Company purchases lists for our clients, we take care to exclude their own customers so they don’t waste money for contact and sales history of customers they already have.

Market to your new lists to increase sales
Marketing to purchased lists within your store location zip codes will help you acquire new customers and increase sales.

You can trust that your marketing dollars will be well spent because the new customers you’re targeting have been vetted using data.

The current customer profiles you created based on zip codes and other demographic information will be matched with information and purchase history of your new customer base, assuring a strong return on your marketing investment.

The bigger picture – your marketing plan
Data-driven customer profiles and purchased lists can fuel your marketing plan with the greatest ROI potential. Taking this approach also has the advantage of building up longer term customer engagement and loyalty because you are targeting to their individual tastes and needs.

Gain more insight on how to fuel your marketing reach in Massa & Company’s retail furniture presentation, “Breakthrough Results.” Click here for your FREE copy.

The following post was written by Bonnie Massa, President at Massa & Company.