How To Create A Customer Database From Scratch?

Having a good database is essential to reach all our clients, but we cannot do it in any way. If you want to incorporate the customer database in your business management effectively, you must have a unified database, in which users who wish to do so are registered.

What data to collect in a database? How to do it?

We can buy the data, but that doesn’t seem like the most ethical or effective option. Only clients who so wish should be in our database, subscribing to our services or giving their permission for us to include them and send offers. These are the steps you must follow to create a database from scratch.

1. Decide what type of data you are going to collect

The idea is to create a very precise database, so you must refine the data collected as much as possible so that you can then filter it without problems. Obviously, the name and contact information -phone and/or email- cannot be missing, but we can also include other questions such as where they live or their zip code, gender, sector, what products they usually buy, etc. Data that are useful to us when launching campaigns.

2. Define how you will get this data

After a thorough analysis, we already know what we are going to ask customers, now we need to know how we will get this data. We have already said that buying information or buying databases should not be an option, so we will have to look for different methods to find our customers’ data.

One of the most helpful is to force the customer to register in our online store before making a purchase, including the subscription box to the shipments of the different campaigns that we launch.

4. Take advantage of all the techniques

Another way to collect customer data is to offer them the option of signing up for a newsletter, in which we periodically inform them of the news of our business. You can also take advantage of the newsletter to offer them discounts of all kinds.

The sweepstakes, contests, or promotions on social networks we also allow add customers to our database, like networking events. Little by little you will add potential clients to a base that will not stop growing.

Tools to manage your clients’ databases

We already have the information, now we just need to manage it, for which we have several tools.

1. Microsoft Excel

Surely, the simplest and most well-known of all of them is to create our customer database in Excel. Taking advantage of the particular design of this program, we can create databases that you can access at any time thanks to Excel online.

2. Google Sheets

You can do the same with spreadsheets from Sheets, Google’s online version of Excel. By downloading the content in.csv format, we can import it directly into the newsletter delivery tools.

3. Hubspot CRM

It is another very interesting option for database management, a very complete tool that allows us to continuously update our databases. This CRM is among the top database software being used by many huge companies. However, for small firms, it may look overpriced.

4. Custom Database software

We have all kinds, from paid programs to open source software that you can use freely. Among the latter, we have options such as MariaDB, MySQL, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, SQLite, FireBird, or Cubird, each with its own pros and cons but that allows us to manage our database well.

That’s where we need a custom business database software that is tailor-made, can use different technologies, and meet our specific requirements. And there are many companies that provide custom database software for personal and business needs.

One such company is Node14, they offer custom database solutions to companies for effective database management and making the entire process simple and easier. To learn more about their services, you can visit their website here: https://www.node14.com.

That ends this article here. If you have any suggestions or need to clarify things on this topic, make sure to drop your comments below. We would be happy to hear from you