The more information you are able to glean from your customers and prospects’ behavior, interests and decisions, the more tools you have at your disposal to re-engage them at various points throughout the purchase cycle. The fear of course is that if you try and ask for too much information too quickly, users will become discouraged and head somewhere else to spend their money. Luckily there are a variety of techniques you can use to help your visitors supply you with ample data, sometimes without even realizing it.

 

When it comes to your customers, how much information is too much to ask for?

 

As a general rule of thumb, when you’re trying to get someone’s info, you shouldn’t turn the process into an hour-long homework assignment. However, prospects and customers who are really into your company and the products or services you offer will be more than willing to provide ample info. Those specific users are your brand advocates and the more detail they provide, the more customized your messages to them will get. Don’t be afraid to ask a lot of questions!

 

Must-have fields you should include for all your customers:

 

1. Email

• Always required. How else are you going to email them?

 

2. First Name

• Great to use in subject lines or body text.
• Why gather first and last name separately? Because a message that starts with “Hey John” sounds a lot better than a message that says “Hey John Doe”.

 

3. Last Name

• Full names are still important for direct mail and other personalization.

 

4. Phone Number

• Ever thought about calling or texting your prospects or customers to see how things are going?

 

5. Address

• There are a variety of CRMs and other database management tools that can automate sending custom-tailored direct mail pieces. Direct mail and other traditional marketing mediums are not dead! They are alive and well, there’s just not a ton of companies doing them the right way.

 

6. Birthday

• Don’t be the only company that doesn’t send a birthday card or email. This is a simple mailing and with automation it can run in the background without you ever touching it again. Plus it is a super easy way for you to stay in touch without seeming spammy.

 

7. How Did You Hear About Us?

• Sometimes your analytics data doesn’t tell the whole story of how prospects and customers came to find you. Learning about potential offline behaviors can provide you with new insights

 

8. Gender

• At a glance, you may not think that specifying male, female or other would give you good insights into your community, but you’ll pick up on patterns even at this level of specificity. Plus, if you’re like us, you might want to send out custom-tailored emails based on gender: Fungis – Fungals – Fungusses

 

Other Fields To Include:

Every industry is different and companies offer a wide range of products and services. For other fields that are more specific to your business, ask yourself: Are their 5-10 categories I could split my customers into based on interest? Here are some examples:

• Local Greenhouse / Plant Nursery User Interest Groups
  • Mushrooms
  • Fruits/Veggies
  • Flowers
  • Shrubs
  • Trees

• Racing Club Favorite Sports Car Interest Groups
  • Mustang
  • Corvette
  • Lamborghini
  • Camaro
  • Ferrari
  • Porche

Think of all the possibilities and time it will take to create emails custom-tailored to each interest group! It’s not as bad as you think once you’ve set up the first set of dynamic content emails. The important thing to remember is that by spending an extra hour or so setting up these fields and options in your database and capturing this information in your newsletter signups or contact form submissions, you’ll be able to create much more granular emails that will be at least 10x as effective in driving your community back to your site.

Interested in more about database management and planning? Visit our planning and strategy page.

Interested in more about dynamic content? Visit our email newsletters page.