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06.27.08 Your Best Customers Should Come Before Your Best Prospects  By Bob Sullivan In relation to my last post, Driving Sales to Existing Customers Takes a Marketing Dive, I'd like to point out a great post by Brian Carroll, Should Lead Generation Ignore Current Customers, along with recent research by the CMO Council, Marketers Are Flying Blind When It Comes To Leveraging Customer Data And Analytics. Brian begins with a shocking client statement, "We know more about our prospects (leads) than we know about our current customers." He goes on to describe a story shared with him by a Global 100 company marketing executive about their new CEO. The CEO asked 10 executive team members to write up a list of their top-10 customers. Only 4 of the 10 executives got 5 or more of the customers correct.
During the same meeting, the CEO also learned that their top-10 customers represented over 50% of their annual revenue. The CEO immediately declared a customer focused initiative dubbed as "The Customer First Plan." The results of that plan showed a net revenue increase of 15% from current customers and a customer referral increase of over 100%. Very impressive! However, I don't believe they truly knew more about their prospects, at least not their best prospects, without complete knowledge of their best customers. Without first knowing all you can about your best customers, there is no way a company can profile, understand and focus on your best prospects. Comments About the Author: Bob Sullivan is President of InfoGrow Corporation, a national sales & marketing consultant and applications provider that enables clients to leverage information and technology for increased sales & marketing effectiveness. |
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