A business exists to create a customer. — Peter F. Drucker
When your business has grown so big that you can no longer call each of your customers by name, it is time to build a database for them, because knowing your customers is more than thinking about them; it is doing something with them, and to do something effective with each of your customers you need this tool.
Let me repeat, and let the concept sink in:
Customer knowledge is more than something mental.
You don’t know your customer if all you have is a mental picture of this person. Knowledge is not merely thinking. Intellectual knowledge is incomplete knowledge.
Knowledge is also doing.
You know your customer upon gaining not only a perception of the person but also upon literally touching the person, and the more intimate the touch the deeper the knowledge.
A customer database should enable you both to conceptualize and interact with your customers, that you may know them. It matters not whether youre a small or midsize business (SMB) or a Fortune 500 company.
If you don’t know your customers, your business is doomed. So, come to know them through your database system. But how do you build the right database system?
The following practical insights come from years dedicated to the creation of marketing databases for large and small organizations. My advice can keep you from stumbling into pitfalls along the way of building such a valuable device.
To know truly your customers is within your reach.
Return to Database Marketing Page from By Their Customer Database Ye Shall Know Them