Just about every business these days accepts credit cards. Most people take it for granted that if they need to pay for something, online or off, they can pay with a credit card. Most businesses don’t give it a second thought. Setting up to accept credit cards is just as basic as installing locks on the front door.

What you might not have considered, though, is that when a person uses a credit card to pay for something, you, as the seller, get a lot more than just their money. Every credit card transaction leaves behind something valuable and extremely useful — customer data.

Have you ever thought about all of the information you are collecting about your card wielding customers and how you could use it to your advantage? You can use all of this valuable data to tune and increase the results of your marketing. All you need to do is look at the data you’re already collecting, and perhaps ask for a little bit more at the time of purchase through your POS system or online forms.

Address Information

The information you already get with a credit card purchase can reveal where your customers live. This is valuable to brick and mortar stores as well as online companies. By zeroing in on where most of your customers are, you’ll know where to target your marketing efforts to attract new customers, as well as keep previous buyers coming back.

Best Selling Times

Looking through the times that sales occur can reveal patterns in customer activity. If you’re working online, you may be able to increase sales by offering “flash” promotions during heavy traffic periods. If your business is offline, you can use this information to decide if your business hours need adjustment to better serve your customer base. Are you wasting resources staying open when nobody is shopping? Are you closing up too early when people are still filing in?

Best Selling Items

Knowing which items are the most popular with your customers will show you where to concentrate your marketing efforts. You’ll know exactly what is selling and what is not. Is your latest promotional bundle really helping sales? Is that item that was selling like hotcakes two months ago still driving good numbers?

Device Information

For online sales, you’ll get information about what browsers and devices your customers are using. Are you working on big beautiful display pieces that look great on a big monitor while your customers are trying to shop on small mobile screens? Have your designers been testing everything with Internet Explorer while most customers seem to show up using Firefox or Chrome? Using this information to make the user experience better will undoubtedly keep more people on your pages.

Email Address

Last, but certainly not least, collecting customers’ email addresses will give you the opportunity to create long-term relationships and engage in ongoing marketing efforts. Email marketing has been shown to be the highest converting marketing method, outperforming any other type of online marketing. Integrating email collection into your online forms or POS system just might be the single best thing you can do to keep your bottom line rising.

Putting It All Together

Just by accepting credit cards, you’re already getting a lot more from your customers than their payment. Take advantage of that data any way you can. From creating a better customer experience to helping with inventory decisions, there are plenty of ways to use it.

By being a little creative at the time of purchase, you can also capture other information that would prove useful to your business. You can get to know your customers by age, sex, location and even income levels. You don’t want to ask for a complete autobiography, but most people won’t think twice about filling in one or two extra pieces of information. If done right, you’ll increase your sales and your customers will get a better experience; everybody wins.

Contact us today and we’ll be happy to show you how the right payment processing systems can improve your business as well as the experience you deliver to your customers. Call 1-866-944-3244 to speak to someone now.