News
 How
Long Should You Keep Contacts in Your Database?
By M. H. "Mac" McIntosh, CBC
When do you know how long you should keep your
contacts in your database? One week? Six months? One
year? Longer? Marketing specialist Mac McIntosh has
found that companies often remove people from their
databases far too soon.
If your customer only buys once in a lifetime, then
keep him or her on your database only until they buy
from you or a competitor. However, if the contact
continues to buy the kinds of products or services
your company provides repeatedly, consider leaving
the person on your database forever. Or leave the
contact on your list for as long as you know you can
still cost-effectively get your marketing messages
through to the person by mail, e-mail, fax or phone.
When I’m providing direct marketing solutions, my
clients frequently tell me that they are now closing
first sales from prospects that have been on their
databases for two, three, four or more years.
One way to determine if keeping prospects and
customers on your database for a long time is
cost-effective is to compare the annual cost of
database marketing to one prospect or customer
compared to the cost of finding a new one. For
example, if your company spends an average of $250
to generate an inquiry, but only $25 a year to keep
in touch with each contact through database
marketing, you could afford to keep the prospect or
customer on the database for up to 10 years for the
same cost.
If you’re going to keep contacts and companies on
your list for a while, I suggest that you
occasionally ask the contacts if they still are
interested in hearing from your company.
Tell them, if they don’t respond, you’ll remove them
from your list. Keep those who say “yes” on the
list. Then remove those who fail to respond. Better
yet, keep the non-responders’ records for
statistical purposes, but code them to be suppressed
when pulling lists for mailing, faxing, e-mailing or
calling.
--- M. H. “Mac” McIntosh is president of Mac
McIntosh Inc., a sales and marketing consulting firm
specializing in helping companies get more
high-quality sales leads and turning them into
sales.
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