Following on from our last blog article looking at maximising customer data, in this article we will look at data capture and highlight how to populate your customer database.
Data capture is an important part of a businesses Online
Marketing efforts. It forms an integral part of the mix when targeting new
customers, its where many new customers journey begins with your business.
Love it or loathe it…
Data capture stokes debate amongst Marketing practitioners,
they are either loved or loathed but timing is everything. Make them time
sensitive, not obtrusive to your customers online experience and inkeeping with
your businesses brand.
Target your customers
more than ever before
Capturing data allows your business to target your customers
specifically on their interests, behaviours and tailor email campaigns to what
product or service of yours they are interested in. It also allows you to build
loyalty, reward someone for being a ‘member’ of your list with exclusive deals,
discounts plus whatever other offer you may come up with.
How to capture an
email address?
There are a few basic methods to grow your businesses
mailing list and capture your businesses data.
Data capture bars
Data capture bars are simple to place on your businesses site,
it
requires a single snippet of HTML to be embedded in the page source.
There are 100s of data capture providers out there with the
main one being Hellobar, which is free of charge. These can also be created
within CRM packages (Salesforce, Zoho, Hubspot etc) to grow your data list and
help your leads/sales. Within Hellobar, whatever CRM package plus whatever
email campaign software you use you can monitor, manage and maintain your
businesses mailing list accordingly with each one offering differing levels of
detail.
A data capture bar feeds contacts straight in to your
mailing list. Different pieces of software will be able to feed the data into different
programmes, but the popular email software like Mailchimp, Zoho etc are
available on most capture bar providers.
The bars in several forms – fixed bars (a static or moving
bar that appears at the top of the page), pop ups (a sign-up forming appearing
after a few seconds on-site often found in the centre of the page) or page
takeovers (a sign-up form that appears after a few seconds taking over the full
screen itself).
The most common method is a simple static bar at the top as
this is not obstructing customers trying to navigate the website whereas
pop-ups and takeovers appear after a certain amount of time and be deemed
annoying by a website visitor.
Visually the pop-up and takeover creating more of a lasting impact,
but users have a love-hate relationship with these whereas the simple static
bar lacks the striking impact. However, it proves more successful as customers
are happier, more trusting and comfortable with a simple less obtrusive method.
Landing pages
A landing page is a standalone web page created specifically
for Marketing a certain product or service. Landing pages are specifically
designed to generate interest and have a CTA (call to action on-site).
Incentivise your customers
You may have customer who visit in-store or follow you on
Social Media, but you do not have their physical information to target them.
Run competitions & offers in-store and on Social Media channels
incentivising existing customers to sign up to your mailing list in exchange
for a reward or discount.
On-site architecture
You can build opt in options into
your business’s website seamlessly. Wherever you capture any customer
information on-site (contact us forms, checkout etc) ask customers to tick the
box if they would like to sign up and opt in to your businesses mailing list.
Lastly & IMPORTANTLY, GDPR
The four letters everyone loves
to hate. New regulations that came into play last year to look at how your
business uses customer information. Ensure any method you use is GDPR friendly
and any customer that signs up gives you their full consent.
