Today I met with a client who recently started a home health aid and nurse visitation business.  She is one of the thousands of people who have launched a business from home on a shoe string budget.  I love working with startup business owners.  They have vision, hunger, drive, and the desire to succeed.  The biggest drawback in dealing with start ups is that they usually have a very limited budget.  Most of the time they fail to allocate enough of that budget towards the one thing that will ensure the success and survival of their business during the usually difficult first year of operation.  That "thing" is marketing.  New business owners don't hate marketing, they just don't fully understand it.  It's only after advertising sales people and marketing consultants sell them dreams that never come to pass that they, like the average business owner, begins to despise it.

     Every start up business owner needs to know that they are entering a market that is usually dominated by their competitors, who do not want to see them succeed.  Competitors do not want to see any of their market share or customers lost to any new businesses.  They believe that every customer that they acquire from the existing market will be hard earned and not easily won, most of the time. 

     Let's get this one thing out of the way.  It cost money to acquire new customers most of the time. This can be done only through the proper use of a marketing medium that produces a R.O.I or Return on Investment for the business.  After working so hard for those new customers you want to ensure that you keep them.  One of the greatest achievements that you can accomplish is to create or establish customer loyalty.  This loyalty can be passed on from one generation to the next if done correctly.  One of the ways to begin this process is by developing your business database.  Below are a list of reasons why a database will be helpful to your business:

1. The cost of winning new customers are far higher than those of servicing the existing ones.
2. Loyalty programs based on an existing and developing customers can help to reduce the overall cost of sales.
3. Developing databases can increase the value of individual customers by encouraging them to continue to purchase from you.
4. Databases allow you to better analyze your customers purchasing patterns and identify the biggest spenders.
5. Databases allow you to add an extra dimension to your marketing
6. Databases provide you with information that will allow you to retain customers over the longterm
7. Databases help you to better define your target market and get the right products and services in the customers' hand.

     In closing, databases can be very powerful tools in the fight to build a successful business.  They help you to up-sell, cross-sell, and increase sales if properly used.  As I mentioned earlier, it is hard enough to secure a good customer; When you do, you must do everything you can to keep them.