# No one has the perfect database, but you owe it to your stakeholders to make the best of what you have. With that in mind see what you can extract to get a better picture of who is on your database, how they act, and what they want from you. Then use it, starting in the simplest of ways, to target and test what’s works best for whom. When you can make relevant offers to your recipients you can make massive increases in response rates – and revenue! Sit down with your strategic goals, work out what information you dont currently have about your customers that would help you reach those goals. Next, use surveys with incentives to ask the most important questions – then add the new information to keep building that goldmine of a database! I’m happy to sit down and help you with this – contact me if you have feedback or questions.

# Preferences are best practice: It’s not just black and white your customers want but charcoal, steel, silver and dove grey too. If you offer more than one or two types of email communications and you don’t have a preference centre that allows self-selection of which they get when; then you will soon! Preference centres are standard practice in the more enlightened online marketers strategy. So then when they ask to unsubscribe you don’t just offer all or nothing/Yes or No – but show all of your email communications, and let your client use one click to choose to subscribe to all, change their personal options, unsubscribe to all, or change frequency etc.

# It’s six months since the New Zealand UEM Act was passed – are you happy with the best practices your organisation has put in place? If you need a reminder, Click through to the NZ Marketing Association’s to find out or learn more… www.marketing.org.nz/best_practice.php