Now is a great time to Spring Clean your data
A slightly longer and darker winter than usual is coming to an end and traditionally, as Spring breaks, we invest energy in sowing seeds to grow throughout the rest of the year. This year should be no different and, after so much disruption, it’s probably more important than ever to spend some time looking at one of the most important assets in your business and using it to nurture your growth throughout the rest of the year – your data.
Here are some suggested steps to take to spring clean your data and set your business up for a great year:
Step One – Who is your ideal customer?
My eBook: “Understand the Importance of Knowing Your Ideal Client and Create your own Avatar” is an ideal place to start.
You need to create an avatar for your business, to ensure that you are addressing the real problems or issues that your customers face.
My guide helps you do three things:
- Learn why you need an avatar
- Learn how to use an avatar
- Create your own avatar by using our handy guide.
Even if you have done this before, I would recommend revisiting your avatars annually (or every time there is a change in Lockdowns!) as your customers change and evolve just as your business may do. You can learn something new every time you complete this process.
Your business needs to be clear on who its ideal customer is to make sure your marketing messages, content creation and systems fit this persona.
Step Two – Look at your data
Once you know who your ideal customer is, you should do an audit of your data to see if it fits your avatar. When I talk about data, I mean your customer data or client information.
GDPR requires you to comply with the law, think carefully about the information you hold, and have compliant protocols in place to be able to send communication to your contacts. You also need to ensure that a process is in place when gathering new contact data too. Talk to me to find out more about GDPR – it really is an opportunity to sort out lots of areas in your business.
If you don’t have pre-defined data input systems or have several people in your company entering data, it can lead to duplication, inconsistent data entries, or incomplete records.
Also, if a GDPR protocol isn’t in place, and your records aren’t clean and tidy, it could have serious implications for how you grow your business, not to mention the risk that you could be breaking the law.
Carrying out a data health check will help you with your GDPR compliance and let you know which areas of your contact database or CRM are lacking information. You can then decide which segments of data need to be enriched, and which contacts need to be updated or re-categorised.
Once you have done a spring clean of your data, you can see what gaps you have and come up with a strategy to improve that area of your business.
Step 3 – Last but not least, invest in a good CRM (Contact Relationship Management)
A quality CRM will allow your business to store data and manipulate it efficiently to reflect your customer avatar, saving you time and money. You may question the need for a CRM, but every business should have one. Read my blog, or watch my YouTube video, to find out how they can help all businesses, regardless of size or complexity.
With a CRM in place, you can move your business forward knowing that you have an effective way of communicating with your ideal customer and that you’re managing their data effectively and ethically.
We always recommend CapsuleCRM because it is excellent at helping improve revenue, reduce spend, ensure productive use of contacts, managing a pipeline, and delivering client work efficiently.
In fact, here at Blake Consultants we help businesses find their ideal customer avatar and then design and install a bespoke CapsuleCRM to suit your exact business requirements. We can also do a data health check on existing databases to ensure you have high-quality data.
If you want to start making some positive changes and grow your business, contact me today for a no-obligation chat about improving your sales and marketing engagement processes.
How I can support you
My goal is to help you, as a business owner, to survive, revive and thrive by getting the most value out of your three most valuable assets:
- Yourself
- Your processes and systems
- Your contacts/data
When you make the most of your contacts/data you are in the best place possible to increase your revenue. When you have efficient, repeatable processes in your business, you reduce the cost of sales. Both of these give the business owner more head space to focus on growing their business.
The overall result is an increase in net profit.
I have been working with CapsuleCRM for over 11 years and helped many clients increase revenue, reduce costs, make the most of their contacts, manage their pipeline and deliver great customer service.
I do this by designing and installing Capsule to meet the client’s needs, offering a bespoke CRM to suit their business requirements. Capsule really is a great solution for coaches, consultants and business owners and when it is integrated with Mailchimp and Xero you have really solid foundations in place to grow your business.
To find out more or arrange a time to discuss how I can help you, please contact me.