Rebuild Your Database Marketing Department: Part 4

Know Everything About How Your Customers Behave

By now, you're six months into your rebuilding project. Your staff largely resent you, your vendors think you're about to fire them, and leaders in other departments want you out because you've blocked access to the folks they used to manipulate.

You probably know something about the skills of your team. You probably have an idea of how your team can contribute to the success of the company. You probably need ammunition to fuel the objectives you're going to set next year.

It is time to know everything about how your customers behave.

If you don't have the internal staff necessary to do a good job, hire somebody from outside the company. Execute a thorough mining of your customer base. Understand everything about the loyalty of your customers, their future value, their propensity to shop via multiple channels or multiple advertising channels, their migration patterns through different merchandise divisions.

This information will become the basis for your objectives next year. The information will determine how you invest in systems, how you invest in advertising, how you invest in people, how you invest in advertising. It means everything. Get this done by month nine, if you can!

Know everything about how your customers behave.