NEW EPISODE: How to Segment Your Database

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Let's say you have gathered every contact from your lead generation systems and compiled one massive database in an Excel Spreadsheet. While it's great to have everything on one place, you can't effectively communicate with your database if it's a mess.

Organizing your contacts can be a difficult process. If you implement a faulty organization structure, you will spend a lot of unnecessary time trying to find the information you need to make proper use of your database.

You need to structure your contact list so you can send precise messages to the right people. In order to do so, you should answer the following questions: Where did these contacts come from? Who is responsible for them? What stage of the sales process is each contact in? How did I get them in the first place?

These questions provide the framework for the four extra columns you need to add to your spreadsheet so you can begin organizing your contacts effectively. Segmenting your database will provide a frame of reference that will enable you to know where you stand with each person and how you can refine your message to get better results.

Category #1: Person Type

Categorize person type with the following descriptions: suspect, prospect, customer, past customer, employee, referral partner, and recruits. This way, you can send unique messages based on your relationship with the person. Here's the definition of each:

• Suspect: Someone who has not expressed interest but may be a great fit for your product or service.
• Prospect: Someone who has expressed interest and wants to learn more about your service.
• Customers, past customers, and employees: Self-explanatory.
• Referral partner: Somebody you're working with who isn't necessarily paying you, but can potentially refer you business.
• Recruit: Someone you're trying to get to come work for your company and trying to build a relationship with.

Category #2: Lead Source

Where did your contacts come from? Some generally acceptable lead sources you can put in this column include: referral, PPC, radio, television, organic search, direct mail, Facebook ad, print newsletter, conference, networking, telemarketing, or list broker. Knowing where your contacts are coming from from will allow you to look at which lead sources are effective and which need to be improved.

Category #3: Contact Owner

It is crucial you have the following questions answered about each contact: Who is responsible for this contact? If you have a lead coming in, who is their account manager?  Who is the person following up with the lead to set the appointment for the salesperson? Who is the salesperson involved with providing the client with your product or service? Starting off, you're going to be the contact owner of everything. But as you grow, you may start hiring employees to help you out with various roles. Bottom line: make sure somebody is accountable for every single contact in your database.

Category #4: Referral Partner 

This is the person responsible for sending you the lead in the first place. This category will allow you to track which contacts came to you by referral and who referred them. It's important to build and maintain relationships with people who send you business - if you take care of your friends, they'll take care of you.

Bonus Category: Opportunity Stage 

So, you know where your contacts came from, who they are, who is responsible for them, and who sent them to you - but where are they in the sales process? This stage category allows you to track where each contact currently sits in the sales process. To organize this category, you can use the following labels: new lead, attempted at contacts, educating stage, appointment set, thinking it over, and won/lost. This is what business is all about - how many leads you can generate, appointments you can set, and people you can get to buy what your selling.

In short, segmenting effectively can help you craft specific messages on a contact-by-contact basis so you can get better results from database marketing.

We challenge you to pick up a webcam and start spreading your knowledge to your database. Social media makes it easier than ever to put yourself out there and market your passion and expertise. It's not just about making a video to get one more client - it's about sharing what you know with the world so you can reach people and scale your impact.

If you want to make web videos to grow your business, we invite you to reach out to us and speak with a senior partner of our firm about how we can help you do just that. We'll do all the work for you. All you have to do is get behind a webcam and let us interview you to help you create content-rich videos. What kind of results can you expect? Depending on your goals and the needs of your business, we can help you determine that over a simple phone call.

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