Nov 10 2017 Why Organizations Need High Quality Data
More companies are looking into their lead databases and seeing dirty, unusable data. Fields filled with incomplete or outdated information render leads useless. Sales and customer service reps are having to explain to clients why qualified leads are hard to find in their reports. Then, data-science engineers are hired to work vigorously, cleaning up the mess.
That’s because not long ago, when it came to leads it was a numbers game for marketers; quantity over quality. Executives and sales staffers alike wanted high numbers from their marketing departments, and after they heard what they wanted they didn’t ask questions. Now though, those questions are being asked, and it’s causing problems. The mindset was, ‘build your numbers as high and as fast as possible’ –and the result, databases grossly inflated with low-quality data.
Marketing departments are struggling to fill those gaps manually. A process prone to errors, not to mention time consuming and tedious. Capturing high-quality data at customer touch points should not only be desired of marketing departments, but demanded. Marketing automation processes must be thoroughly scrutinized to ensure only the highest quality data is accepted.
If companies want to turn data into actionable insights such as acquiring new customers, increasing customer retention, and a better understanding of customer needs, they have to scrub their data from the jump. Not only that, it is just as important to keep that data updated.
Data is like furniture in that it’s clean to begin with, then becomes dusty, dirty, and worn from use later. It takes a bit of maintenance for its best performance. Customers change jobs, addresses, phone numbers and company emails almost too fast to keep up with. Clean data is essential now more than ever to successful marketing efforts.
High Quality Data Improves Customer Segmentation, Marketing Efforts, and Revenue
It is almost impossible to hit a target you are not aiming at, and sticking to that target is hopeless without a sharp arrow. Let your data paint your target, and let engaging content be your arrow.
In order to make your content stick it has to be tailored to the audience it’s aimed at, and to tailor it correctly you need to know your audience –this is the essence of high-quality data and the segmentation it enables.
The goal of segmentation is to define who and why that person should care about listening to you. Customers want your content because high quality data enables your marketing segmentation efforts to be more effective, and customer engagement means revenue.
This is achieved through scrupulous data capturing processes and continual housekeeping of your data. High-quality data results in highly targeted segmentation; this means fewer emails, fewer unsubscribes, higher click through rates, more engagement, and infinitely more important, qualified leads for your sales teams.