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Are You Leaving Money on the Table?
June 17, 2008

Are you wasting data? Recently, I received a 1:1 personalized letter from my local auto dealership. I followed up to find out what kind of response rates they were getting.

As I was waiting on the phone, I noticed that the coupons on the letter didn’t contain bar codes. No bar codes? How were they tracking results? 

Turns out, they weren’t.  They don’t care what kinds of responses they are getting. The dealership is very busy, making lots of money, and the owners don’t want to outgrow their customer base. They are proud of the “home town” feeling and don’t want to alienate their long-time customers by drawing lots of new customers and filling up slots in the service department too far in advance.

I asked what I thought was the obvious question. Instead of using 1:1 marketing to increase the size of their customer base, why not use the same database to increase the profitability of their customer base? Do this by targeting the most profitable existing customers and encouraging them to come in more frequently and purchase higher margin services?

Now the marketing guy was listening. Apparently, they’d never thought about using their database that way before.

How are you thinking about your existing database? Are you thinking about it too narrowly and perhaps leaving money on the table?

Have questions? Comments? I'd love to hear from you. You can email me at htollvr@aol.com. For more information on primers for marketers and small businesses on digital, 1:1, and Web-to-print technologies, visit
www.digitalprintingreports.com.

Posted by Heidi Tolliver Nigro on June 17, 2008 | Comments (0)