Would you put Dirty Fuel in a Brand New Car?

The answer is no, you wouldn’t!

The concept of this blog is to do with data. Why would you put dirty data into a brand new CRM to be used for upcoming marketing campaigns? It would jeopardise the success of the marketing campaign and waste valuable resources.

Why should I update my data?

It is recommended that data should be cleaned once every 6 months to ensure that it remains up to date. Of course, on a smaller scale, it may only be relevant to update the data as and when a campaign is being conducted.

Here are some possible changes that may have occurred when using old data for your new marketing campaigns:

1) The company has moved address

2) Your decision maker has left the company

3) The company has merged with another company, been acquired or dissolved

The result of these outcomes is normally the same; it results in an ineffective campaign with no ROI.

How can I tell if my data is outdated?

Email campaigns are an effective way to discover whether your data is severely outdated. Through email campaign hosts, bounceback emails are recorded and some even keep a record of why the email was undeliverable. For instance ‘email inbox full, email suspended, or email blocked’. This is particularly useful as you can understand the reasons behind the bounceback and update all data as well as the email when cleansing the data.

You can also select a random sample of data from the database and do some calling to verify the data. If your sample is a worthy size compared to your database, you should be able to work out a percentage for how decayed your database has become and then take action.

How can I clean my data?

There are two options to data cleansing and it usually relies on the size of your database. Some companies choose to outsource their data cleansing whereas others tackle it in-house.

Data cleansing by calling each company is normally the best way to cleanse a marketing database. It is normally best to put at least 3 or 4 hours aside to get into a flow with your data cleansing. Develop an introduction to explain why you are gathering names, and set targets for how many contact details you will collect each hour. This will keep you on track.

Jan Woodruff

Contact us on Twitter, Facebook or leave your comments below. To find out more about cleaning your data, why not take a look at our website for more info Prospectresearch.co.uk