Mine Your Database: That's Where the Hidden Gold Lies!

One of the questions I'm asked most often by my clients is, "How can I most quickly build my business?" The answer is to spend more time mining your database. It is often said that the money is in your database. Here's how to mine yours with these four easy steps that can quickly build your bottom line.

STEP 1: Capture Every Contact with a Note

Create a category system that incorporates your personal shorthand for dividing contacts by niche. When you receive business cards, write a quick note on the back or front of the card using your category system. For example, if you are preparing to launch a new product that targets men and women between the ages of 25 and 45 with incomes over $75,000, that's too much information to write on the back of a business card. Instead, you can invent your own shorthand to write, say, "Code-75+." Then, when you add your new contact to your existing database, the information will already be properly coded by you.

Why do this? First, this is what major research marketing companies do for a hefty price. They want to keep your prospect and client lists as narrow and niche-focused as possible. The more focused and niche-focused your group of contacts, the higher percentage of sales conversions you will enjoy.

Here's the math:

Product/Service + Niche Marketing = Higher Level of Sales Conversions.

Second, finding and categorizing niches allows you to mine contacts and group by similar wants and needs. I highly recommend using the shopping cart Kickstartcart, which does everything you need to communicate and track business and potential business over the Internet.

Third, the more niche-focused and deep you go within a group, the more likely you are to discover trends that will help you develop products and services to better meet the specific needs and interests of your clients and potential clients. In many cases, you will be able to provide these extras before they ask.

STEP 2: Create Specific Categories

One of the smartest ways to provide products or services that your prospects and clients want is to ASK them. An inexpensive way to do this is to prepare a survey to send to your database. At www.surveymonkey.com, you'll find sample surveys and dozens of helpful links. You'll be amazed at how much marketing information you will find from your survey. Your findings will help generate specific categories for you to follow.

STEP 3: Go Deep Within Your Groups

Even though I know the hot trend in business is the paperless office, I still like keeping business cards. You can scan them into your computer, or you can keep the cards in plastic holders in a large binder. I have several binders.

Here's how keeping those cards on hand allowed me to successfully go deeper into niche categories I already had created. As I was marketing my first Branding & Productivity Boot Camp, I revisited some of my business cards, even though niche information already had been captured by my KickStartCart database. I wanted to go deeper.

In my case, I discovered a business card on which I'd written a note that this person was interested in the idea of having a Branding Makeover. This was information not stored with my database, but discovering it prompted me to make a phone call. She immediately signed up.

STEP 4: Keep Your Contact List Active

One of the most effective ways to attract new clients to your business online and offline is to capture a person's name and email address. Once you have this information, you can communicate your message to clients over and over again.

A proven way to attract new prospects and convert them into clients is by having them sign up at your Web site. You accomplish this by offering information that is truly of benefit. In this era of Information Overload, this is not a matter of quantity. It's a matter of the quality of information that can be understood easily and that is useful to them.

Here are four products you can offer to your Web site visitors in exchange for their name and email address:

1. Offer access to a well-researched White Paper on a product or service that can become a useful tool in their everyday life.

2. Create an e-zine with good information, and include an article that will help them solve a problem. Offer your expertise on emerging trends that can impact their business or lifestyle.

3. Offer a mini-course on a topic in which you have unique expertise. By using KickStartCart, you can quickly set up a system that will allow visitors to download each mini-class or receive it automatically via email. I am creating my first seven-series mini-course as I write this.

4. Create easily downloadable reports. Some of the products popular among my clients are titled "Five Biggest Time Wasters and How to Overcome Them" and "20 Ways to De-Stress." Ask yourself what the clients in your niche categories would consider valuable, and tailor your reports accordingly.