As a small business owner, you need to be a lot of things to make your business go—but you don't have to be a marketer alone. Join host Dave Charest, Director of Small Business Success at Constant Contact, and Kelsi Carter, Brand Production Coordinator, as they explore what it really takes to market your business. Even if marketing's not your thing! You'll hear from small business leaders just like you along with industry experts as they share their stories, challenges, and best advice to get real results. This is the Be a Marketer podcast! New episodes every Thursday!
Today on episode 64 of the be a marketer podcast, it's another ask Dave episode, and I'm answering your about how organizations with limited data can increase personalization and segmentation. This is the be a marketer podcast.
Dave Charest:My name is Dave Charest, director of small business success at Constant Contact. And I help small business owners like you make sense of online marketing. And on this podcast, we'll explore what it really takes to market your business even if marketing's not your thing. No jargon. No hype.
Dave Charest:Just real stories to inspire you and practical advice you can act on. So remember, friend, you can be a marketer. At Constant Contact, we're here to help. Well, hello, friend. Thanks for joining us for another episode of the Be A Marketer podcast.
Dave Charest:It's an Ask Dave episode, which means we've got a Kelsey Carter with us here today. Hello, Kelsi.
Kelsi Carter:Hello, Dave. How are you?
Dave Charest:I'm fantastic. Now listen. Last time I think we spoke to you, we didn't really get into much because, you were trying to speak to me and and be the boss of things there for a little while. But we've got some ducks in this situation now, don't we?
Kelsi Carter:We have some big ducks nowadays. Ducks. They're, like, 5 weeks now this week, so they will be moving outside in about 3 weeks, even maybe 2 weeks. But, yeah, they are huge now. They don't fit in 1 hand anymore.
Kelsi Carter:You have to hold them with the whole arm, and they're getting their adult feathers. And they're starting to quack now instead of chirp, so that is so cute.
Dave Charest:Wow.
Kelsi Carter:So it was like the first quack that I heard. I was like, oh, my baby's first word. And I love it.
Dave Charest:Amazing. So, well, 1, I'm gonna need some updated pictures because I've seen them as they've been tinier, I suppose. I I guess well, it's hard to tell from a picture sometimes too, right, how big they actually are. You're gonna have to do the the quarter for, like, sizing abilities there so we know in relation to what that really looks like. So I'm wondering, during this process, is there anything new that you're learning, anything new that product wise maybe you had to go on the search for?
Dave Charest:Tell me how that's been going.
Kelsi Carter:Well, it's been a learning experience with their pen right now because they quickly outgrew I think I just underestimated how quick that they grow. So we originally had them in a nice box setup. But they outgrew that within, like, a week. So we upgraded to it was, I think, the box for their duck house. So we cut that and, like, made it very nice, but I didn't realize how much of a mess they made with water.
Kelsi Carter:So we had to put 2 water containers in there for them because they go through water now within like 4 hours and it's a liter. So they'll go through water so, so fast. So I think that has been an experience, but we've definitely adapted. And that's something too that I've been very impressed with us too, is that, like, making the little changes and, like, upgrading their house has actually been a lot of fun. So I really like that.
Kelsi Carter:And then building their duck house was, like, such a fun experience too, putting that together.
Dave Charest:Where did you get your instructions? Are we still at the same company here in terms of figuring out how to how to do and build this stuff, or are you finding new information?
Kelsi Carter:So the deck house was just a tractor supply. That was, very prefab. Put that together. I'm not there yet with my carpentry where I could just say, like, you know what? I have an idea.
Kelsi Carter:Let's build it. I need instructions first. But for Metzer Farms, I have been keeping up with them. I haven't been receiving very many emails, which I think maybe was like a missed opportunity of just as they're progressing in their weeks and they're preparing to go outside. I kinda wished that maybe I was getting some more material for that, but I've still been using, like, going back to their site because they do have a lot of great resources on their site.
Kelsi Carter:So I have just been looking into that, especially for food because they need a specific protein percentage in their food. So that's been very particular, but their website has been helpful for that.
Dave Charest:So I think this is a good opportunity to bring up just for our listeners that it's important to really think, or it's a good opportunity to think of what happens when someone becomes a customer. Because we're often so focused on getting new customers that we forget about like, okay, you know, they've converted, right? They've done the thing, they've bought the thing, cool. Now, how do I get somebody else? But 1 of the big things that you can do is really, really think about and I think, you know, when we start thinking about like automation and things like that, I think this is really important to think through, How do you help someone make the best use of their purchase?
Dave Charest:And if you can do that, that will often lead to other purchases or other referrals because they'll become more tightly ingrained in your business and what you do because you're helping them get the most out of the thing that they purchased from you. So I think you're a perfect case of this here where you've purchased the ducks, you've got the things, but now you're in it. Right? You're in the heat of it, and you've got all of these questions. You're learning all of these things.
Dave Charest:It would be great to if they anticipated what those needs may be and put in the time to create something for you that helped guided you along that path, that, again, leads you to things that are probably things that you're gonna need that you're finding out that you need or knowing or helping you anticipate that you're gonna need, that they may have products and services that you could purchase or use or get from them in order to help with those things. So something to keep in mind there. Real quick, give us, give us your your names again because I don't know if we had all 3 names when the last time we spoke.
Kelsi Carter:Yeah. So we have Mango, who right now, she's currently a little bit yellow, but she's been losing that. And she's going to be white and fawn. So you can see her brown starting to come through now with her adult feathers coming in. And then we have Duck Duck who is gray.
Kelsi Carter:And then we have my little goose who is black. But it's funny. Duck Duck is actually getting black speckles on her.
Dave Charest:Oh.
Kelsi Carter:We've been noticing, so that's gonna be really cute. Would you like to hear my nicknames for all of them?
Dave Charest:Oh, they've got nicknames too.
Kelsi Carter:Oh, I mean, of course.
Dave Charest:I feel like
Kelsi Carter:you can't just call them their names.
Dave Charest:Let's hear it.
Kelsi Carter:Called Mango. She's Mango Tango.
Dave Charest:Yeah. Of course.
Kelsi Carter:Duck Duck has like, call her, like, ducky and then, like, duck duckie and then Didi.
Dave Charest:Okay.
Kelsi Carter:And then Goosey is my goosey goober.
Dave Charest:Goosey goober. Yeah. A little is that a is that a SpongeBob reference?
Kelsi Carter:It is. Uh-huh.
Dave Charest:I see.
Kelsi Carter:It is my goosey goober.
Dave Charest:Awesome. Well, I can't wait to hear more about the trials and tribulations of your duckies, but let's get to our our customer question today. What do we have?
Kelsi Carter:Yeah. So today we have a question from Courtney, a membership marketing specialist at a bureau that advocates on behalf of families with farms. Courtney asks, what tips do you have for increased personalization slash segmentation for organizations with limited data?
Dave Charest:So this is an interesting question. And I think something that happens here, because I mean, thinking of the type of business that we have here, which is a is a bureau that advocates on behalf. And so it's a membership related type of organization. And I think, actually, something to note here is that Courtney probably has access to a lot more information than she may think she does. It sounds like what I'm hearing is that maybe we're not making those connections between constant contact and the stuff that they have from a membership perspective.
Dave Charest:And so I'll get to that in a second. I just wanna mention, like, just 1, I love this idea of thinking through 1 by Courtney's thinking about the idea of increased personalization because I think that's what we're seeing more and more these days. Right? People want things that feel really relevant to them. And so when we say personalization, what do we actually mean?
Dave Charest:Well, we mean a couple of things. Like, sure, right? Typically people go to the idea of thinking through something, using somebody's name or some information that you know about them. But I think ultimately what personalization means today is less that and more of just sending information and sending messages and content and whatever it is that you're doing, but communicating in a way that feels really timely and relevant to the people receiving it. And so some of the ways you can start thinking about, it's almost like this is why we talk about segmentation and why that's important, right?
Dave Charest:Because you're starting to think through the different groups of people, the different things that may allow you to talk to them in a specific way. And so there's demographic data, of course. There's geographic data. There's behavioral data that you can start to collect and think through and start to process to help you kind of make decisions or know how to communicate with people. But I think I want to highlight that as a membership organization, you know, you've, you've got this data that just really needs to get to those contact records that I was mentioning.
Dave Charest:And so when you start thinking about what are the types of things that you're probably collecting as the organization that you are, right? You're probably collecting as people are signing up for a membership, you're figuring out what county that they're in. You're finding out whether they're an individual. Are they part of a business? Are they full time farm?
Dave Charest:Are they a part time farm? Are they an employee of the farm? Or maybe they're just somebody that is, you know, trying to help advocate as well. Right? What is the company name?
Dave Charest:Where are they geographically? You have a phone number, probably. Right? You're getting whether or not they've even been referred by someone else to join the organization. And so you've got all of this information.
Dave Charest:You've just gotta get that information within your Constant Contact contact records so that you can tie that stuff together. And that is oftentimes as simple as exporting that data, getting together a spreadsheet, and then uploading it to Constant Contact with the information that you have. And that email address that you have for people will be that kind of common factor. And so like, let's say you have email addresses in your Constant Contact account already. You can take that file that has an email address associated with it, which you'll have because you have that information, and then you can update the records.
Dave Charest:And so it will match the email addresses so you don't get duplicates of that, and then update those other fields that you're putting in there. Then once you've got this stuff in your Constant Contact account, that's really when you can start using the data that you have there to start creating segments. Right? You can either do that manually, you can do that automatically, You can use our dynamic segments tool to really start thinking about, all right, use these factors and use that to create a list of people. And then you have all of these different ways that then you can start either marketing to getting communications in front of the right people.
Dave Charest:Of course, you can start to do things within your emails, like insert those details, right? So you could use, of course, somebody's name, but you can also use the county that they're in. And then you could send something specific to that county and say, hey, we see people with farms in this county are struggling with these issues, so here are some things to help. Right? I'm just making things up here to think through how you might start to go about that.
Dave Charest:But those are all the types of things that you can do. You can even start to use dynamic content. So I'll use the county example again, right? Like, let's say you're sending out 1 email to everybody, but you want to include a photo of a particular county in the people you know whose county it is, right? So you could say, Here, insert this image of this county in this email where people have this piece of information.
Dave Charest:They're in this county, right? So you can use 1 email, but multiple pictures, and only the email that is related to that account can get shown. That's just an example there. And then I think, you know, you start thinking about just automations too. Right?
Dave Charest:So like how do you create certain automations that are going to talk to specific people? So those are all the ways I'd really start to think about that. And you're saying, well, I guess I'd I would add 1 other thing too. You can also allow people to kind of update their profiles as well, and you don't have to. Courtney's in a unique situation here where she's getting all of this information all at once and so has access to it.
Dave Charest:But if you don't have it, maybe you're another organization, you can think about collecting it over time. Right? And you can also use the stuff that people are doing within your emails to, to get data as well. Like, what are the things that they're interested in? And you can tie that to triggers within automations and all of that.
Dave Charest:So I think the big thing really, if we're thinking about just kind of recapping everything, it's about the personalization and segmentation is really all about that timely and relevance of the information and getting that to the right people. You probably have more data than you think, as I mentioned. So get that data into your contact records, and then really start thinking about the ways that you can use that data. So I'm great it's that, that Courtney has asked this question because I think that means like, yeah, I would like to do more with data. We just got to make that connection.
Dave Charest:And so we'll of course include some links in there for people. And I would say this for listener out there, do the same thing. Make sure that you're updating those contact records. Right? The the more you can do to really keep your contact list up to date, really the more valuable that it starts to become.
Dave Charest:You can even let contacts, as I mentioned, update their own profile information as well, and, we'll include details in the show notes for that, too. You know, I wanna mention 1 other thing. If you're just getting started with Constant Contact, if you're a new customer, make sure you check out our new customer hub as well. That's where you can find resources to get you started. We have the ability to connect with other Constant Contact customers, and you can even find details about how you can drive it, drop into drive in.
Dave Charest:You could drive in, maybe, and we'll see what happens. Maybe get a shake, some fries. I don't know. But you could drop in to a live ask a trainer session, and you can get instant help and pro tips. Kelsi, if people have a question for me, how do they, send that in?
Kelsi Carter:Well, if you're a Constant Contact community to post your question for an upcoming Ask Dave episode. You'll find that link in the show notes.
Dave Charest:Excellent. Thank you, Kelsi. We'll see everybody next time.
Kelsi Carter:Thank you, Dave.
Dave Charest:I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Be A Marketer podcast. Please take a moment to leave us a review. Just go to rate this podcast.com/ba m. Your honest feedback will help other small business marketers like yourself find the show. That's rate this podcast dot com slash bam.
Dave Charest:Well, friend, I hope you enjoy the rest of your day and continued success to you and your business.