Building a database of supporters, who you can commence and maintain a dialogue with, is the best way to build a customer base or audience.

Building a database of supporters, who you can commence and maintain a dialogue with, is the best way to build a customer base or audience.

People who give you permission to contact them, with news and information about your organisation, products or services, are like gold. Encouraging people to sign up to your online communication channels (email, Facebook, Twitter etc) enables you to maintain that dialogue at low cost with the added advantages of immediacy and easy word-of-mouth and referral.

Put your energy into building an email database and a following on social media. With email management solutions such as MailChimp now available, and the ease of updating Facebook and Twitter pages from anywhere, this will be a very effective way of getting people onto the first rung of your customer ladder.

1. Talk to your team, suppliers and supporters about the benefits of collecting data via online channels (web, email, social media).

These include:

• Reduced marketing cost.
• Immediacy of communication.
• Easy to start a conversation and keep it active.
• Growth of community via peer to peer activity (recommendations, forwards, shares etc)

2. Revise your thinking about your database.

Social media is now as valid a way to communicate with your constituency as direct mail and email. Some people now primarily communicate via Facebook. Enable people to connect with you in the way they feel most comfortable. Your database also includes your fans and followers.

3. Ask yourself “What are people signing up to?”

Articulate the benefits of sign-up to yourself and your users. Typical benefits include:

• First to receive on-sale information.
• Previews and ‘inside scoops’.
• Regular exclusive offers.
• Information of relevance to them.

4. Review your existing sign-up processes from the point of view of a potential user.

Ensure that any barriers are removed. Here are some important things to remember:

• Place an ‘invitation to sign up’ (to email and social media) in a prominent position on every page of your website. Typically fewer than 50% of web users enter sites via the home page.
• Ask for just the right amount of information. Not so much that it’s off-putting, but enough to meet your future communication needs.
• In the case of email sign-up, reassure users that you will respect and protect their data. Be clear about how often you will contact them, what they will be receiving and what your policy is around sharing their data (i.e. you don’t!).

5. Define what data you need to collect.

What are your marketing needs in the future (e.g. you will need to target your communications by region)? It is more difficult to collect that information down the track, so ensure that you ask for it now. At the same time, unless you can deliver on it now, be careful not to set up the expectation with the user that they will be receiving information only relevant to the data they have provided you.

6. Decide if you need a ‘double opt-in’ for email sign-up.

For example, will the user be required to click on a link on the confirmation email, in order to complete sign-up? Although this is most certainly the most secure method, for most creative businesses it is an unnecessary and unwieldy step to ask prospects to take. 30-40% of new sign-ups are typically lost in this way, because that many people just don’t then click on the link and the moment is gone.

7. Plan how you will make use of your data – before it is collected.

Research in the arts sector has shown that when people first sign-up to a database, they are at their most engaged with the organisation. That’s when you want to send them their first emails, status updates or new content. Have your communication plan ready before you start your “acquisition drive”.

8. Look at ways you can use your existing customer base to bring you more database sign-ups.

Give them reasons to interact on social media, driving your links into their news feeds. Provide them with an easy ‘forward to a friend’ mechanism in your email communications (most basic email management systems automatically provide this). Use incentives and rewards to encourage them to ‘introduce a friend’.

9. Consider some ‘pay per click’ advertising to boost your numbers over a short period of time.

Particularly if you have a new product or important launch coming up. Use the “be the first to know” incentive to encourage sign-up via Google Adwords (for email sign-up) or Facebook ads (tor Facebook sign-up). With this form of advertising, you are targeting people based on their interests, while they are online and predisposed to clicking. The ability to specify limits on how much you spend daily – and per click – enables you to keep control of your budget.

10. Deliver on your promise to your users.

If you said you would send them a monthly newsletter with behind-the-scenes insights and special offers – then do it. You want to keep ‘churn rates’ (the number of people who sign out from your database) to a minimum. With all the effort invested in Steps 1 – 9, you don’t want to lose the prospects you have worked so hard to find!

* * * Next Steps * * *

Identify your current sources of data as a starting point. What are the barriers to collecting or using it? Put yourself in your potential customer’s shoes and try signing up for your database or social media pages. What barriers do you hit? Address these as a first step.