You can build models based on your top clients/customers in order to find others who look like them! Overall, applying a model will help you identify especially promising individuals who most closely resemble your best supporters. This can be especially helpful when it comes to prioritizing large lists of new leads, event participants, or other groups of ‘unknowns.’
Recommendation 1: Focus on the Top 10%
Consider building a model on the top 10% of your clients/customers, however you define that. For example, you might want to focus on:
- Largest clients over the past 3-5 years
- Most frequent customers
- Customers with the highest total spending
This both allows you to learn more about them as a group, as well as enables you to find other people in your file who look like those top clients/customers, though they themselves are not at that level – yet! You can then apply that model to brand-new or low-level customers to uncover which of them have serious untapped potential.
Recommendation 2: Model Event Attendees
Build a model based on the people who have attended high-level events (e.g. Frequent Conference Attendees). You can then apply that model to other people in your database who have not attended a conference in order to find those who closely resemble regular attendees. Modeling scores will help you target new potential leads for next year’s invitations.
If you want to get even more focused, you can build a model of event attendees who became regular or higher-level spenders post-event. Discovering their common characteristics and using them as a model can help you prioritize other attendees for solicitation following the event.
Recommendation 3: Optimize your officers’ portfolios.
Let’s say that you have just hired a new Sales Officer or are re-configuring major sales officers' territories. How do current clients and customers under management "measure up" with actual major spenders in your organization? Build a model of your current major spenders and score your Sales Officers’ portfolio. This helps you prioritize the current individuals that look the 'most' like your top people and provides you with evidence for review and possibly removal of low-scoring clients/customers.
Recommendation 4: Prioritize New Leads
You just received a large list of brand-new potential leads, people you really don’t know. That’s a good thing, but if you have limited time and resources it can be hard to take full advantage! In this case, you can build a model of your top spenders (perhaps repeat, long-time clients/customers) and apply it to your new leads. Model scoring will allow you quickly segment that file, identifying what level of outreach is truly appropriate for different groups. Not only will you save time, but you’ll also likely see a much higher success rate.