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Capturing basic customer information (name, address, phone number, e-mail, birth date) should be common practice in your store or shop. This is primarily because this very basic information will help you to build two key databases; direct mail and e-mail. With these two databases in place, you aide your marketing and loyalty program efforts by having an avenue to communicate sales, promotions, new product releases and special events to people who have indicated that they are interested in what’s happening at your store. In addition, there are customer service benefits as well. Such as being able to call the customer by name (last name is preferred), remember special days like their birthday or anniversary or send out seasonal cards to your base.

Here is a simple way to get started:

1. Using Word (or Excel if that’s your preference), create a basic mailing list sign-up form like this.

Remember, you want to be sure to capture the basic information and then you can add in a few extras that may be useful for doing something special for the customer. In this example, if a person indicates that Karen Kingsbury is their favorite author, I’m going to let her know every time Karen Kingsbury has new book or product coming out and give some type of incentive on buying it from me (i.e. a percentage off or other discount).

2. Try to fit two on a page and print several copies.

3. Cut the sheets in half and place at your registers and at the entrance (if you can) of the store.

4. Train your staff to offer the opportunity to join your mailing list at the register, while people are in line or during browsing time in the store. DO NOT overwhelm the customer .Keep it simple; “Have you had the chance to join our mailing list?” It’s always good to be able to tell the customer the benefit of joining your list as well. “Would you like to join our mailing list? We send out special sales and promotions, discounts and special events to those who are on our list”.

*Note- Some stores offer incentives to join the mailing list such as a percentage off with your purchase today or a dollar discount on their next purchase. Consider these options as a means to jump start sign-ups.

5. Once the customer has completed the form you’ll want to plug their information into your POS system or you can also manage this via Excel (though this will require a little more work on your behalf).  If you are using a POS system like Bookstore Manager managing your mailing list is a breeze.

6. Finally, I recommend you set-up an e-mailing program to handle your e-mail communications. Again, if you are using a POS like Bookstore Manager they already have an e-mail program built into the system that allows you to really target your list effectively. Be sure to contact them to get all of the details. I personally use a program called Constant Contact which I would recommend to those of you who may not have the POS system in place but still want to use e-mail to market you can find out more about Constant Contact here.

Make capturing customer information a common practice that you use during this busiest shopping season of the year and it will benefit you throughout the year.

David McIntyre