Detailed profiles build sales

by Stuart Derrick Marketing Direct 02-Jun-08, 12:00

When your business is selling something that practically every other business needs, you might be forgiven for thinking that targeting was not that high on the list of marketing priorities. However, for storage supplier Rapid Racking, identifying its most profitable customers has been at the heart of recent business development.

The Gloucester-based business sells everything from box files to fully planned warehouse systems. Direct marketing is crucial to its business model, which is based on a biannual catalogue sent to existing customers. In recent years, it has widened its product range to appeal to more businesses.

"Our competitors are more sales focused, sending somebody into an organisation, whereas we have been reliant on DM," says sales and marketing director Mark Hobbs. "For years we simply sent out more catalogues every year, but we wanted to be more sophisticated."

Rapid sends three million mail pieces a year, including up to six prospect mailings featuring a cut-down version of the 250-page catalogue. It tries to identify its best customers through data modelling. "We have been targeting by recency, frequency and monetary value as well as size of company," Hobbs says. "There can also be a geographical element, with certain parts of the country growing at different rates."

This previously in-house work was handed to marketing services provider Blue Sheep in 2007.

Execution

Rapid Racking took a licence on Blue Sheep's B2B database, The UK Business Universe, which contains 4.5 million companies and is refreshed quarterly. Blue Sheep analysed and profiled the existing customer base to produce a more sophisticated scoring model. Prospects were ranked by potential value to the business, with specific criteria including geography, SIC code, employee size, transactions, spend and market penetration.

Storage can be a one-off purchase, so company size is a good indicator of likely value. In the past, companies with more than 10 staff were viewed as the best prospects, but Blue Sheep found that often businesses with just five employees were good customers - and added 150,000 prospects to the database.

Results

Rapid Racking posted an 11 per cent upturn in sales, outstripping its target of seven per cent. "It's a phenomenal result in this sector and a record year for us," says Hobbs.

Future activity will focus on targeting by name and job title. Storage can be 'owned' by a multitude of personnel: in a small company, the MD is probably the best prospect, but in a financial institution with document storage requirements, it could be the FD.

In February, Rapid Racking was bought by French distance selling group Manutan.

Brand: Rapid Racking

Brief: To develop the prospect pool and help deliver sales growth

Target audience: Businesses that need storage

Supplier: Blue Sheep

POWER POINTS

- Rapid Racking wanted its customer targeting to be more sophisticated

- Blue Sheep created a more dynamic profile of existing customers and prospects.