Practical tips for foreign trade newcomers to use customs data to mine customers!

Customs data is a rare and powerful tool for new foreign trade traders who want to efficiently explore customers. By searching product keywords and HS codes, new foreign trade traders can quickly find real customers with supply and demand transactions, which is equivalent to knowing hundreds of potential customers around the world, which can greatly save time in finding and verifying buyers.

Next, we will introduce in detail the specific strategies, operation tutorials, and possible challenges and countermeasures for mining customers from customs data. ​

1. Specific strategies for mining customers from customs data

1. Target customer positioning

In the treasure trove of customs data, importer and exporter information is the key clue to discover target customers.

First, we need to carefully analyze their purchasing behavior and check the types, specifications and quantities of the purchased products. If an importer frequently purchases electronic product parts with specific specifications and the purchase volume is steadily increasing, it is very likely that they are potential customers of the relevant finished product manufacturers. The transaction frequency is also of great significance. High-frequency transactions indicate that their business is active and demand is sustained. For example, if an exporter has multiple textile export transactions every month, it is undoubtedly a high-quality potential target for fabric suppliers.

Furthermore, combined with the analysis of procurement time nodes, for example, the procurement of certain seasonal products is concentrated in a specific period of time. By mastering this rule, you can make precise moves. At the same time, paying attention to the distribution of procurement regions, exploring emerging markets or deepening mature markets can accurately locate target customer groups and lay a solid foundation for subsequent business expansion. ​

2. Market segmentation

Market segmentation is like precise navigation, leading foreign trade people to the other side of success.

When segmenting by industry, we focus on specific industries, such as the machinery manufacturing industry, sort out customers who purchase machinery and equipment and parts, deeply explore industry trends, technical requirements, and competitive landscape, and customize product advantages and service highlights based on industry characteristics, such as providing automobile manufacturers with high-efficiency and energy-saving engine parts and quick-response after-sales service.

By region, we consider the differences in economic levels, consumer preferences, and policies and regulations in different regions. For example, the European and American markets focus on quality and environmental protection, and products must meet strict standards; emerging markets value cost-effectiveness and functional diversity, and marketing copy and channel strategies are flexibly adjusted accordingly to expand the sales network.

Based on the purchase volume, we manage large customers, medium customers, and small customers by category. We provide large customers with preferential prices, priority supply, and exclusive services to improve their loyalty and purchase share; we use flexible packages, bulk discounts, and value-added services to stimulate the potential of small and medium-sized customers, achieve full market coverage and deep penetration, and improve marketing efficiency and market share. ​

3. Build a customer profile

The construction of customer portraits requires the coordinated efforts of customs data and diversified market information. Key factors such as enterprise scale, years of operation, transaction frequency, product preferences, etc. can be accurately extracted from customs data. If the data shows that a company frequently imports high-end smart devices and its scale continues to expand, it may be a growing company pursuing technological innovation.

Combined with social media trends, industry report information, and market research feedback, customers' hot spots on new product development on social media, technological breakthrough trends in industry reports, and customers' expectations for after-sales value-added services in surveys all add color to the portrait.

This will provide a comprehensive insight into customer demand preferences, including product performance pursuit, price sensitivity, service quality expectations, brand value recognition, etc., to provide solid support for precision marketing, product optimization, and service upgrades, narrow the distance with customers, and improve cooperation fit and satisfaction. ​

4. Take the initiative

Taking the initiative is a key step in converting potential customers into actual cooperation, and email marketing and telephone marketing are common and effective means. When conducting email marketing, the subject line must be concise, clear and attractive, such as "Innovative product solutions that increase your profits by 30% - Sincerely recommended by [Company Name]", which quickly catches the customer's attention. The content of the email is carefully crafted, with a friendly greeting at the beginning, and the main body briefly explains the unique selling points of the product, its differentiated advantages over competing products, the value it can create for customers and successful case testimonials. At the end, the customer is sincerely invited to further communicate and leave a variety of contact methods, and it is suitable for mobile browsing. At the same time, the sending time is accurately grasped, based on the time zone and work habits of the target customers, such as European and American customers choose to send in the morning during their working hours to increase the email opening rate and reading volume. ​

When doing telephone marketing, be fully prepared before the call, be familiar with product details, customer background, demand pain points, and preset strategies for answering common questions. When you dial the phone, introduce yourself politely, and use concise words to point out the purpose of the call and the relationship between the customer's interests, such as "Hello, [your name] from [company name]. Based on customs data, we can understand your needs for [product name]. Our innovative solutions can help you reduce costs by 15% and increase efficiency by 20%. We would like to share them with you." During the call, listen attentively to the customer's response, skillfully guide the direction of the conversation, introduce product highlights and service guarantees at the right time, answer questions patiently and professionally, and finally make a friendly agreement on subsequent communication nodes or meeting arrangements, record key information, lay a solid foundation for follow-up marketing, and gradually win the trust and cooperation of customers. ​

5. Maintain customer relationships

Building and maintaining good relationships with customers is a solid foundation for the steady development of foreign trade. It is essential to establish a daily communication mechanism. Regular emails are used to push new product information, industry insights, and exclusive promotions. The content is rich and practical, with pictures and texts, and the style is in line with customer preferences. Telephone communication is timely and appropriate, and concerns about business progress, product experience, and dynamic changes in demand, providing personalized suggestions and solutions. On important holidays and customer birthdays, sincere greeting cards or exquisite electronic gift certificates are sent to strengthen emotional ties. ​

Closely tracking changes in demand is also key. Market fluctuations, industry changes, and changes in corporate development stages may all give rise to new demands. With the help of customs data and market intelligence, we can keenly capture changes. For example, if a customer needs supporting products to expand into a new business area, we can quickly respond to adjust product service strategies, collaborate with customers to develop innovations or optimize product lines; regularly visit customers to gain in-depth understanding of demand details and potential expectations, collect feedback to optimize product design, packaging, delivery processes and after-sales services, and improve customer experience satisfaction. ​

Providing personalized services is the key to enhancing customer loyalty. Customize product packages based on customer purchasing preferences, such as integrating multiple product solutions for customers who pursue one-stop purchasing; arrange expedited logistics lines and prioritize orders for customers who focus on delivery speed; provide exclusive technical consultants and regular on-site training and maintenance for customers who prefer technical support; build an instant response mechanism for customer feedback, collect opinions through multiple channels, quickly handle them, and promptly feedback improvement results, use services beyond expectations to create an excellent reputation, consolidate long-term win-win cooperation relationships, and drive continuous business growth and brand value. ​

2. Operation tutorial and steps using AB customer customs data as an example​​

1. Introduction to AB Customs Data Platform

AB Customs Data is a powerful foreign trade tool platform that includes the world's five major trade data centers, with more than 1.2 billion overseas trade data, covering major ports and trade cities in 80 countries around the world, covering Asia, Europe, America, Africa, Oceania, etc., covering 200+ destination countries around the world, and the data is still expanding. Through this platform, newcomers to foreign trade can use product keywords, HS codes, supplier or buyer names, country of origin or country of destination, etc. to search for high-quality customers around the world, deeply explore customer contact information, generate comprehensive analysis reports with one click, and monitor competitors in real time. The data it covers is very detailed, such as the names of importers and exporters, product descriptions, transaction weights, transaction prices, etc., which can help foreign trade companies quickly find target customers, efficiently implement customer background checks, fully grasp market conditions, and provide strong data support for the development of foreign trade business. ​

2. Login and query permission acquisition

First, go to the AB customer official website ( https://www.cnabke.com/customsData.html ). New users need to register and fill in relevant information according to the page prompts. After completing the registration process, you can log in to your account. After logging in, you can get more free query permissions. In addition, you can also choose to upgrade your account package, which will give you more customs data queries, enterprise searches, email searches and other operation permissions, making it easier for new foreign trade users to make full use of platform resources to mine customer information.

3. Data query details operation

After logging in and obtaining the corresponding permissions, enter the customs data query page. For example, if you want to find potential customers who deal in electronic products, enter product keywords such as "electronic products" in the search bar, and then click the search button. The page will present tens of thousands of transaction data related to electronic products around the world. These data include basic information about buyers and suppliers, as well as detailed import and export data and trade overviews. You can further filter and sort these data based on transaction time, transaction size, etc., accurately locate potential customer groups that meet your expectations, and lay the foundation for subsequent contact mining, marketing, and other work. ​

4. Find buyer contact information

After querying the relevant transaction data, click [Buyer]. In addition to seeing the detailed import and export data and trade overview, the search button [Search Email in the Whole Network] will appear, which can deeply mine their contact information. It supports accurate contact information search in more than 200 countries around the world, with a relatively high accuracy rate. In addition, you can also use search engines such as [bing] and [Google]. For example, enter the content in the format of "product name + importers + email" or "company name + email@" in Google to try to find the company's email, phone, fax and address information. At the same time, don't forget to use social media to find contact information, such as social platforms such as Facebook and LinkedIn. If you want to find a gmail email in Facebook, you can search for "product name site:facebook.com "@gmail.com" in Google to try to find it. Through the combination of multiple channels and multiple methods, try to fully explore the buyer's effective contact information, so as to facilitate the subsequent proactive attack and establish contact with customers.​

3. Challenges and countermeasures for new foreign trade customs data mining customers​

1. Challenges

For newcomers in foreign trade, they often face many challenges in the process of using customs data to mine customers.

First, the ability to interpret data is insufficient. Customs data contains a vast amount of information, such as various transaction records of importers and exporters, cargo details, etc. Newcomers may find it difficult to accurately extract key content from complex data due to lack of experience, and cannot grasp what is truly valuable potential customer information. For example, when faced with procurement data from different regions and industries, they do not know how to analyze the market demand and customer preferences behind it. ​

Second, they lack data analysis capabilities. It is not easy to analyze customers’ purchasing patterns and transaction trends from customs data. Newcomers are often unfamiliar with how to use appropriate analysis methods and tools to sort out valuable clues. For example, they cannot use data to determine the changing trends and influencing factors of customers’ purchasing volume, and then formulate corresponding marketing strategies. This is a big challenge for them. ​

Third, they face fierce competition. Nowadays, competition in the foreign trade industry is becoming increasingly fierce. Many peers are using customs data to explore customers, which means that everyone may be eyeing the same group of high-quality potential customers. Newcomers are relatively weak in experience and resources, and it is difficult to stand out from the competition and win the favor of customers. ​

Fourth, information updating and timeliness. Customs data has a certain lag. If newcomers fail to pay attention to the data update in time and use outdated data to explore customers and formulate strategies, they may miss opportunities or make decisions that are not in line with the current market situation. ​

2. Countermeasures

However, newcomers to foreign trade do not need to worry too much. There are many effective ways to deal with these challenges. ​

First, strengthen the study of data analysis knowledge. You can systematically improve your ability to interpret and analyze customs data by reading professional foreign trade data analysis books, participating in online or offline related training courses, and mastering common analysis techniques such as data screening and trend analysis, so that you can dig out more valuable information from the data. ​

The second is to choose the right mining strategy. Combine your own product characteristics, target market and resource situation to develop a targeted customer mining strategy to avoid blindly following the trend. For example, if the product has great potential in emerging markets, then focus on analyzing customs data related to emerging markets, focus on local potential customer groups, and adopt differentiated marketing methods to attract customers and increase the success rate. ​

The third is to learn from successful experiences. Communicate more with seniors in the industry, learn their practical experience and skills in using customs data to mine customers, understand how they solved similar challenges, and refer to successful cases shared on some foreign trade forums and industry public accounts, draw inspiration from them, and apply them to your own customer mining work. ​

Fourth, pay attention to data updates. Develop the habit of regularly checking customs data updates, keep abreast of the latest market information, and ensure that the data you rely on is accurate and in line with current market trends. At the same time, you can also pay more attention to some real-time foreign trade information channels to help you better understand the market changes reflected by customs data, so as to flexibly adjust the strategy and direction of mining customers. ​

In summary, for newcomers to foreign trade, knowledge gained from books is always shallow, and one must practice to truly understand. The strategies shared in this article, such as mining customers from customs data, the operation tutorial of the AB customer customs data platform, and the measures to cope with challenges, all need to be actively applied to actual work. Only by constantly exploring and summarizing experience in practice can we truly master and exert their value. ​