Customers are the most important component to your continued success. So big or small, B2B or B2C, you should be collecting the most accurate and informative data you can from the very beginning. For many startups, this is a time consuming task that is often put aside. In our experience, taking the time to figure out your data strategy from the beginning can help save you time and set you up for long term success.
Let us help you make it little less daunting for you. Here’s our quick guide to help get you started.
Database Management
Make a list of all of the data that you want to collect for each new contact you add. Think about it this way: If you wanted to send a targeted communication to all of your contacts who work for a brand and are located in California, would you have collected the data to make it possible to segment that way?
PRO-TIP: In your CRM you can't always rely on company level information like location. The HQ might be in New York, but your contact might be in California. Make sure to distinguish the difference so you can segment.
Here is a list of suggested fields to get you started:
First name
Last name
Email address
Company
Phone
State
Country
Contact Type (example: brand, agency, artist)
Lead Lifecycle (where is the lead in the marketing/sales funnel
Lead Status - this is super important, you want to know what's going on with your leads. You can even create sequences to target these people (oh you said reach out to me in three months? ok I'll put you in the three month follow-up sequence or oh hey, you don't have budget for this? well here is a sequence all about how we actually SAVE you money.)
MAKE YOUR FIELDS REQUIRED!
otherwise, what’s the point?
What's the point in trying to collect the data if people aren't required to fill it in. Think about the data you want to standardize, make it a pick-list and never make one of those values “other” because people will always choose that and then you have no data.
Simple Nurture Program
Most marketing automation or CRM tools give you the ability to build simple nurture programs. Why are these important you ask? For a few reasons. First, they keep your audience engagement and remind them you’re there. Second and maybe most important, they save you time.
PRO-TIP: If you’re a Hubspot user, you can use the sequences they provide to help you build out your nurture programs. Here’s how it works: enroll individual contacts in to a sequence by navigating to the contact name, selecting email, selecting sequence and selecting the sequence. You can also mass enroll people in your sequence once it's created. You can create new sequences under the automation tab. HubSpot has pre-built templates you can modify or you can start from scratch.
CHECK IT:
It’s important to go back through and do this. just remember to take the valuable time to think about your message. and if you need help with messaging, fivefoottwo is here to help!
It’s important you don't bite off more than you can chew when developing the sequences. You don't want it to be difficult to manage nor do you want excessive emails in your sequence. Always make it personal. Most email marketing tools will allow you to add a dynamic field that pulls in the contact name in the salutation and the lead owner name in the closing.
KEY THINGS TO REMEMBER:
Three emails is typically the sweet spot. Start here and measure engagement on each touch.
You need a human touch! Work a call into your email sequence.
Think about what content resonates with your target audience. Address their pain -how do you solve it? Feed their ego. I would stay away from trying to be clever, it's becoming a bit over done.
Avoid spammy subject lines! Read this HubSpot Blog for some solid tips: https://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/30684/the-ultimate-list-of-email-spam-trigger-words.aspx
Does your message resonate with everyone who will be added to this nurture program?
Reporting
Evaluate what is relevant to you and what specifically you want/need to report on. Most CRMs have good out of the box dashboards. Beyond this, we recommend you think about creating SDR specific reports so you can wake up, open your dashboard and know exactly what you need to do for the day. You should also consider creating marketing dashboards to monitor the health of your marketing programs. See below one of our favorite examples from Klipfolio.
