Tags answer questions, not feelings
Before adding a tag, ask what question you would use it to answer. 'How many of our customers came from referrals last year' is a real question; the tag is 'source: referral'. 'Which of our customers buy seasonally' is a real question; the tag is 'pattern: seasonal'. 'Are they a fun person to work with' is not a useful tag, because there is no business decision attached to the answer. Every tag in the system needs to be tied to a specific question you actually ask.
Three or four such questions are usually enough to derive five to ten tags. More than three or four questions is usually a sign that you are inventing complexity rather than removing it.
The four categories that earn their place
In most small businesses, four categories of tag cover almost every useful slicing question. Source: referral, search ranking, paid ads, social media, walk-in, return customer. Customer type: relevant to your business - residential, commercial, wedding, corporate, repeat, one-off. Value tier: high-value, mid, low - based on whatever 'high' means in your business, set the threshold deliberately. One optional category specific to you - for a baker, perhaps event types; for a coach, perhaps practice areas. Five to ten tags total across these four categories.
- Each tag answers a real question you ask about the list
- Maximum ten tags across the system
- Adding a new tag requires retiring an old one
- Each tag has a one-line definition the team agrees on
- Pruning happens every six months, in the review
Definitions matter more than names
Every tag needs a one-sentence definition that the whole team agrees on. 'High-value' means what - more than a thousand pounds in the last twelve months, or a single transaction over five hundred, or both. 'Wedding' means weddings only, or any event over fifty people. Without these definitions, two people apply the same tag to different kinds of contact and the slicing produces nonsense. Write the definitions down where everyone can see them, and revisit them in the quarterly review.
Retiring tags
Tags get stale. A tag for a campaign you ran two years ago, a tag for a service you no longer offer, a tag for a partnership that ended. Retire them. The rule from the previous chapter applies: adding a new tag requires retiring an old one. The cap of ten total tags is what forces the discipline.
A worked example
A small wedding florist might end up with these tags. Source: referral, social media, paid ads, fair, supplier. Customer type: wedding, event, regular order. Value tier: high, mid, low. One specific category: season - spring, summer, autumn, winter. That is twelve tags, slightly above the cap, which is fine if it is deliberate. With these twelve, the florist can answer questions like 'how many high-value summer weddings came from referrals last year', which directly informs where to spend the next year's marketing budget.
What to do this week
Write down the three questions you most want to be able to answer about your list. Derive five to ten tags from those questions, with one-line definitions for each. Apply them to your active customer tab this week (do not try to do the whole list in one sitting). The remaining tabs can be tagged opportunistically as contacts come up in the weekly review.
The previous chapter warned against complexity; this chapter is the small, deliberate exception. The next chapter Reviewing the List Each Week is what keeps both the simplicity and the segmentation alive over the long run. Recurring principle: review results and improve the system.
