For everybody in the food and beverage industry, it is important to understand the importance of having a good database tailored for our industry. It is this kind of technology which makes us grow exponentially, without wasting time.

If you are a distributor and have all the correct information about your stores, their managers, their cell phones and email accounts, combined with all the buyer information that is found online, then 40% of your sales effort is already taken care of in advance.

Let’s do the following exercise:

Suppose you have information about 100 customers and a pallet with a fast deadline coming up. Or, you just need the space which that pallet is occupying and you need to wrap things up.

Traditionally, you prepare the pallet for your vendors on your ‘specials’ sheet. You give it to them when they come to your warehouse and you expect them to do their job and sell. You trust that, along with the thousands of other things they have to do, they will remind the customer of this great opportunity.

If you are someone who does this, you have lost over 15 days of selling time. That is the average time that you would normally take to liquidate merchandise in the traditional way.
.
On the other hand, when you have your database well established, using a commercial information system or a social network management platform for businesses, in less than an hour you would have managed to communicate to thousands of prospects about your promotion through e-mail or through a variety of social media. You could even make a ‘call to action,’ inviting them to get an additional discount if they buy the special in less than 48 hours. This will help you liquidate inventory in less time than you would have thought.

In the case of a supermarket it is very simple. You can easily use e-mail and social networks with regular customers. Through an email message or a coupon on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, Google +, etc., you can do a promotion immediately, increasing traffic to your place of business.

By keeping all your information organized, you can use it at the right time and subsequently boost sales.

Three tips for managing your information:

1. Keep the database updated.

If you can, use a system that allows you to see and remove those inactive contacts.

2. Be consistent with the frequency of your advertising message.

Send out information to your customers on a regular basis.

3. Be concrete and really give added value.

Customers always like to make “deals.” Go ahead and give it to them if you can make a profit.