General

Customs data is a major form of customer development for foreign trade personnel. Not all foreign trade personnel can achieve effective results in developing customers using customs data. Some foreign trade personnel have reported receiving very few responses when using customs data to develop customers. This is mainly because foreign trade personnel did not use customs data correctly and only sent emails based on the user contact information provided by customs data, which naturally would not have a good effect. So how should customs data be used correctly? Xiao Zhijun has found some methods for everyone, quickly collect them!

1. Selection of purchasers

Customs data contains a large amount of purchaser information, but not all purchasers are useful to us. After obtaining a copy of customs data, we need to conduct a preliminary screening of the data and develop targeted products after determining whether the customer is a professional buyer.

2. Analyze and follow buyers

After selecting professional buyers from customs data, we also need to analyze these buyers. Firstly, we need to analyze the purchasing habits of the buyer based on the weight, quantity, and frequency of the products they purchase each time. Afterwards, we also need to determine the customer's preferences based on the purchasing address of the purchaser. For example, if the purchaser can always purchase from Europe, the customer pays more attention to the quality of the product. If the purchaser has always purchased products from Africa, it indicates that the customer values the price of the product.

3. Analyze competitors

We can also learn some relevant information about competitors from customs data, such as product prices and quality, so that we can target them when developing customers.

4. Contact information

Some customs data comes with their own contact information. Generally speaking, the contact information of Indian customers in customs data is generally more accurate, and foreign traders can directly contact customers. Of course, there are also some customs data where the contact information of customers is not complete. In such cases, we can search for the name of the enterprise in Google to obtain the contact information of the person in charge of the enterprise.

5. Social media connections

Currently, many foreign trade salespeople still stay in the email stage when developing customers, and a single development model will naturally not achieve significant results. Therefore, when foreign trade operators develop customers with the help of customs data, they not only need to develop customers with the help of email, but also can use telemarketing and social media marketing models.

LinkedIn is a very good channel for directly finding the names of relevant positions. It will be much easier to find contact information once you have the names. You can also directly send a message to the customer's official Facebook page and ask the buyer's email, which is effective for personal testing.

6. Multiple communication methods in parallel

At present, many foreign trade salespeople in China are still in the stage of developing customers only through email, and need to learn to use various social media and timely chat apps. To put it in perspective, if you receive a promotional email, it is highly likely that you will not reply. However, if someone adds you on WeChat and greets you, our probability of replying will be much higher. There are WeChat in China and Whatsapp, Line, Viber, VK, Messenger, etc. abroad. If you have a customer's phone number, you can communicate directly online through chat tools. Of course, making a phone call directly will also be more efficient.

7. Multi-channel development approach

Whether it's an exhibition or a B2B platform, if customers come to look for them, you can also use data to check if there are any transaction records. If so, what is the previous procurement situation and price? After developing a suitable quotation strategy, continue to communicate with customers to know oneself and the other!

There has always been information asymmetry in international trade nowadays. Foreign customers know a lot about us, and we have too little knowledge about foreign buyers. Customs data can make market information more transparent!

In the process of developing customers, foreign trade personnel can use customs data to help them grasp more information about customers and appropriately reduce the difficulty of customer development. In order to fully utilize customs data, foreign trade personnel should learn to analyze the information of customs data and conduct targeted customer development.