Where Does Your List Reside?

“Profitability comes from repeat business”.

This was one of the first lessons I learned in marketing as I began my journey into business.

Simply put, we have to invest time and money to ‘buy customers’. There is a cost to acquisition (which is why we track client acquisition cost - CAC), but when we get these same customers to come back over and over again, our return on investment continues to grow.

If I buy a customer for $100, and they buy from me just that one time, spending $200 (assuming a 100% gross margin for simplicity), then my business makes $100 ($200 in sales - $100 to acquire = $100). When that customer comes back and buys from me again…without the need for additional marketing, then the next sale is pure profit. There is no additional marketing acquisition cost.

So, the question then becomes…how do I get my customers to come back and buy from me again?

Simple answer…ASK them to!

This is one of the primary reasons I believe that EVERY business should have a database of customers and prospects that they OWN. A permanent list that can be communicated with to build further relationship and ask for further business.

So allow me to ask…where does your permanent list reside?

Do you have a CRM (client relationship management) system in place? Do you use a marketing database tool like Mail Chimp? Or…are you like many businesses I know who only keep this information inside their POS system or accounting software?

The challenge with the latter is that having your prospect or customer data only inside a POS or accounting system is that it is quite difficult to send marketing and relationship based communications. It is great for sending invoices and other finance and sales related communications, but not for marketing. When we shift over to a tool designed to communicate with our database, we have the full power of building a relationship that matters and fostering further business transactions as a result.

There are plenty of amazing tools out there to get you started…and they don’t have to cost much (or any) money to start. A platform like HubSpot is great for those just starting out. Their base level is free and gives you most of what you need. It can also grow with you as you become more sophisticated in your marketing and become ready to leverage more tools to communicate with your database.

Building the database is one of the most important things we can do in our marketing.

Here is a bit more on the topic for you…

Russel Brunson shares his thoughts on Traffic that you OWN vs Traffic that you CONTROL and Traffic that you EARN. The goal, he says, is to convert as much of the traffic you can control and earn into traffic that you own (YOUR database).

So what is traffic that you control and traffic that you earn?

Traffic that you control is any traffic that you can directly point to where you want them to go. The best example of this is paid ads. You pay to control traffic on Facebook, Google, etc. into an ad, landing page, funnel, website, etc. that you own.

Traffic that you earn is any traffic that has voluntarily chosen to follow you. The best example of this is followers on social media. You cannot directly control where that traffic comes from or where it goes, but you can influence it. Unlike the traffic you control, traffic you earn is often much warmer and more receptive to your message since THEY elected to follow you.

The key with these two types of traffic is to remember that YOU do not own them. If Facebook were to close shop tomorrow or Google changes their algorithm, you could lose everything you had been working towards. Another example of this is TikTok…if and when the legislation forces a removal of the app in the US, we can say goodbye to all the earned and controlled traffic from that platform.

Our goal as marketers is to funnel the traffic from these external sources into a database that we own. From here, we can continue to build relationship, provide value, and, ultimately, generate more business over time.

If there is one thing you take away from this message today…understand the power of your database. Know where you permanent list resides and begin to think about how you can use this information to build relationship with your best customers.

Over the coming weeks we will be shifting into different ways to generate leads (and traffic), then shift to best practices on how to create content.

Stay tuned and we will see you in the next one!