Intensive customer loyalty

But before we get to the analytics, let’s take a quick look at the bigger picture: Acquiring new customers is costly and requires significantly more effort than intensifying an existing customer relationship. This has been proven by many studies and surveys. And this experience applies not only to the sale of energy bars, wine or travel to end customers, but also in B2B business. For example, tradesmen who have good experiences with their suppliers buy regularly and usually also larger baskets of goods. So let’s intensify customer loyalty!

“Mmmh-delicious-moments” or: Knowing customers in order to bind them specifically

Customer loyalty is hugely important, as my Buddy illustrates. After all, satisfied regular customers are loyal, tolerant of mistakes, and they recommend products authentically to friends or colleagues. In the age of social media, this also means that loyal customers recommend a product to a large number of people in their social network. How do you win over loyal customers and create these “Mmmh-köstlich moments”? How do companies increase customer loyalty and turn single buyers into multiple buyers? Of course, a good product range is a basic prerequisite. But beyond that, it’s crucial to know your customers intimately. Knowing what moves them, what excites them, and what motivates them to make repeat purchases. The key: Multi Buyer Analytics.

Evaluate purchases with Multi Buyer Analytics

Companies that use multi-buyer analytics are significantly more successful than their competitors. This is proven, among others, by a power bar manufacturer and Schober customer who uses Multi Buyer Analytics based on our universal data platform (udo) with great success. The first thing to do is to get a solid overview of purchases and buying habits.

Which customers buy only once and then disappear from the radius of marketing measures? Which customers, on the other hand, buy multiple times? With the answers, segments for subsequent measures can already be created in a first approximation. If you add the time intervals between purchases and the product groups purchased in each case, the view of the customers quickly becomes complete.

It can be seen, for example, that a so-called persona of multiple buyers prefers to buy a certain product in larger quantities, but then does not order anything else for a longer period of time. Another, however, orders small quantities more frequently, but these come from different product areas – energy bars, protein shakes and isotonic sports drinks.

Product mix analysis

Product mix analyses go deeper, allowing the correlations of individual offerings to be determined at the product level. In the case of the power bar manufacturer, for example, flavor, price and container size are related. For other Schober customers, such as the water specialist bevo, it is water pipes, connecting sleeves, special adhesives and hoses. Whatever the product portfolio, a product mix analysis of purchases reveals valuable synergies for existing customer care. Of course, it is precisely these correlations that must first be drawn from the data through analysis. To make this possible even without a degree in mathematics, udo offers
udo
offers intuitive ready-to-use analytics.

Targeting customer loyalty measures

Targeted analysis of purchase and customer data as part of multi-buyer analytics provides crucial knowledge about customers. Single and multiple buyers with their respective preferences can be precisely identified, so that marketing and sales can use targeted communication measures to stimulate customer loyalty and new purchases. The right triggers and purchase motivations can then be set along the customer journey: The targeted development of existing customers can begin – from single to multiple buyers, from loyal customers to brand ambassadors. Of course, many factors – market, target customers, budget, creativity and others – play a role in the measures. The right mix of measures is therefore always individual.
We have compiled five key success factors and reasons for multi-buyer analytics in a checklist that you can download for free below.

Back to the gym

But let’s get back to the power bar manufacturer and its case. The company used multi-buyer analytics to first target and segment buyers of its products and cluster them by buyer group. One key finding: the number of multiple buyers can be expanded particularly quickly through targeted cross-selling. From the product mix analysis, it was clear that energy bars are a low-threshold, “fast-turnaround” offering and sell very well along with energy gels in the gym environment.

Lack of information quality

Today, every company stores and uses data about its own customers and prospects: Goods are sent, invoices are written, consultation protocols are kept in the call center, marketing campaigns are set up and much more. Over time, this CRM data becomes more and more extensive and complex. But without a data strategy, the overview is quickly lost.

Data quickly becomes obsolete. For example, they are entered incorrectly, are no longer current, or are duplicated. Such data errors reduce data quality and have immediate economic consequences. This is also referred to as the “garbage-in-garbage-out” principle: errors in data cause errors in analyses and forecasts. To illustrate, if you put water in the tank of your car, you won’t be able to drive far. So it is with data quality. Poor data leads to a lack of information quality – wrong decisions are made and opportunities are missed.

Avoidable costs

But a lack of information quality also causes high, in many cases avoidable, costs. A simple example is not reaching a customer or sending out elaborate catalogs twice. Unrecognized risks are also problematic, such as when a customer bundles large merchandise credits under different identities. Costly inconveniences also quickly arise when customers are contacted despite an advertising ban and legal disputes threaten. This makes it clear that strengthening the data basis reduces risks and costs. Where are the biggest challenges in data quality?

How to strengthen data quality

Poor quality data contains data errors, duplicates, missing values, incorrect formatting, inconsistencies, and more. The matter is very complex and requires experience. That’s why the Schober Information Group offers a data quality check that quickly determines certainty about your own data quality and optimization potential. Briefly, the most important three aspects:

Duplicate addresses – this happens when several contacts to one company or several people from one household are registered. In this case, Schober offers to identify and mark multiple existing data via a duplicate comparison. Subsequently, the entries can be merged or even deleted upon explicit request.

Outdated information about companies – this happens when companies move, go bankrupt, change their name or similar. Around 30% of addresses need to be updated within a year, it is estimated. Here, Schober offers to identify addresses in the CRM data that are unsuitable for advertising, relocations, insolvent or defunct companies for processing or to confirm them positively.

Outdated information about people – this happens when people move, get married or die. Here, Schober offers reconciliation and updating based on negative inventories – such as movers, deceased or bad payers.

By the way: In principle, database entries are only made at the express request of the customer and only by the client himself.

More insight thanks to data enrichment

Data quality is the suitability of data for a particular purpose. And that doesn’t end with being coherent. You also have to provide the necessary information! If you want to convince people of the advantages of a pool in the garden with an elaborate marketing campaign in the spring, for example, you need information on the residential structure and purchasing power. Because in an urban residential area without gardens, of course, you can not create a pool. If advertising companies do not have this information at their disposal, targeted enrichment with the Schober data universe can help.

Whether geodata, identification data, potential analyses, industry keys, decision-maker data or company size – the Schober data universe provides the required data and significantly increases the depth of information. This ensures targeted customer contact and the ability to create detailed analyses based on facts.

The advantages of information quality and depth

A strong database with high quality and depth of information strengthens sales, support, product development and marketing. This is undeniable. In our experience, the concrete benefits are, for example, better deliverability of marketing and sales campaigns. This starts with the correct postal address and goes on to socio-demographic characteristics and the correct form of address. The result is efficient CRM processes that save more than just costs. After all, a strong database is an important asset and a central component of value creation for companies.

Data is silver, good data is gold

Data is silver, but good data is gold, because only from it can companies gain the information that determines market success. Analytics become more accurate, leads can be more precisely estimated, and customer interactions become more precise overall. “Get the basics right” is what we say at Schober and with the “Brahm’s staircase” we have developed a method to generate added value from data. This has also resulted in a cloud-based out-of-the-box platform. We call the solution udo and think you should get to know udo.

We will be happy to show you how to increase data quality. You are always safe and DSGVO-compliant with us, because Schober attaches great importance to data protection and security. Just log on to michaela.weisse[at]schober.de and she will help you do a free data quality check and increase sales thanks to high depth of information. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact her.

Good luck and long live your sales!

Your Schober Team

Office Depot Germany/Viking: International shipper of office supplies

Scissors, stamps, furniture or cleaning supplies – if you’re looking for office supplies, you’re in good hands at Viking in Germany. The office supplies retail brand, which is part of the European Office Depot group, is now successful in eight European countries and employs over 1,500 people in Europe. Viking’s recipe for success: one stop store for your workplace, innovative and data-driven marketing, and great customer service.

Challenge: New acquisition channels for efficient B2B growth in Europe

In order to grow across Europe, acquire new customers and expand existing customers, Viking relies on the Schober data universe in combination with the analysis and marketing expertise of the Schober Information Group. In addition to tried-and-true marketing – SEO, SEM, catalog mailings and field sales, Viking has developed new ways with Schober: 1. data quality assurance 2. market potential analyses & target group clustering as well as 3. international B2B e-mail marketing.

Image source: envato

Solution: Data Quality, Analysis & Scoring, B2B Emailing

Success in data-driven marketing depends on data quality. Therefore, Viking and Schober start with a data quality check including data enrichment. Now we have enough data for analyses: What addressable market potential is there in Europe, in Germany, in the UK? Which types of companies predominate? What are the portfolio synergies? These are examples of questions from the potential and customer value analyses that lead to target group clustering. Company potentials targeted by Viking via email campaigns to specific groups.

E-mail convinces and activates thousands of new customers

What comes out? Viking and Schober initially carry out analyses and e-mail marketing in Germany with great success. Thousands of new customers are convinced, so that the positive experience is also transferred to other European markets: After Austria and the UK, the next market on the agenda is Belgium. With international data partners and its data expertise, Schober manages the international roll-out of B2B marketing campaigns.

Outlook: Constant dripping wears the stone instead of mayflies

Viking is so pleased with the success that they have scaled up: Data quality and data enrichment run monthly – as do analytics and scoring. The return on marketing investment is particularly interesting when compared to search engine marketing. Why? “Contacts we acquire via search engines are usually only seen once. We can turn customers from Schober email campaigns into loyal existing customers. This is exactly in line with our positioning: One Stop Shop for your workplace, innovative and data-driven marketing and great customer service,” says Sandy Kirchhoff, Senior Manager Commercial Marketing Europe