Sell to people, not demographics

Richard Madden is spot on to highlight the fact that in order to cross-sell, businesses must start taking note of what their individual customers want and how they behave (“Cross-serving is the secret behind successful cross-selling,” MW 10 June). But so many companies are fundamentally hindered and unable to do so because of the way in which they collect and analyse their online customer data. Too many companies anonymise and generalise their customer data into demographics and homogenous groups. But demographics don’t buy, individuals do!

The use of complete data, detailing every single visitor to your website and the opportunities they presented to the business will afford marketers the flexibility to personalise product offerings, accurately profile their market and feed the information into every customer-facing business process.

Start treating your website like the shop or store that it is and talk to your customers and visitors as the individuals that they are.

Malcolm Duckett, VP marketing and operations, Speed-Trap

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