Customers as Benchmarks

Once you've identified the top people within your customer database, create a “benchmark” based either on your best advocate, or possibly a combination or hybrid of the top few. Here’s how this constructed “benchmark” can empower your organization and influence your sales and marketing efforts. We’ll begin building entire campaigns around that particular benchmark. We’re going to market to “one benchmark,” whether we’re finding, sending out email newsletters, putting together online events, expanding product lines, whatever the campaign. And the more characteristics we can identify about our benchmark, the more effectively we’ll market, and the more receptive our audience will be. If you have more than one product division or audience type, you’ll naturally have more than one benchmark. Maybe Benchmark #1 spends little time with us but buys more expensive products. Maybe Benchmark #2 represents your local audience, doesn’t spend a lot of money, but always connected with others, giving us insight into best product benefits. Maybe Benchmark #3 is a prime candidate for your lower price point product line.

Let’s list client attributes of each of your benchmarks. Sales cycle (how long does it take for them to buy?) Much more easily answered when we’re talking about a real person. Much more vague are answers to these questions when we generalize our audience (60/40 male female sku, age 18-49). Attitudes, Pruchases, Demographics, Experiences, and so on.

With your benchmarks defined, we can plug any of them into any part of the sales cycle, defining them as a Lead, or a Prospect, a New Acquisition, and a Loyal Customer. Here’s a representation of the sales cycle…the process that each lead takes in becoming a customer, and beyond that, becoming a loyal customer through multiple points of sale over their lifetime. Of course, along the sales cycle there are multiple points of attrition, based on their experience throughout the process. To reduce attrition, we target the right offer to the right person at the right time. Timing has a great deal to do with the phases of the sales cycle. In an “Awareness” campaign, our aim is to do exactly what’s implied…to help make them aware of a solution to a need that they have. We’re not using sales closing tactics, we’re not “committing” them at this phase. Just making them aware of a solution. So, I believe it’s Denise Hopkins, Vice President of Product Development at Experian, she talks about “look-alike modeling” as a strategy for prospect messaging. She mentions that it produces 2 to 3 times the typical response rates.

Let’s take a closer look at 2 benchmarks, we’ll call them Brianna and Davis. Of course, each benchmark has a list of defining characteristics, derived from our best advocates.