Good marketing and bad data just won’t wash

Business marketing data degrades quickly, as any B2B marketer who’s initiated an email or direct mail campaign recently knows. Bounce rates are hitting the ceiling. Direct mail return rates are shockingly wasteful. Martine Hunter of MLT Creative offers some advice on how to keep your B2B data clean and accurate.

Data master Dun & Bradstreet says the current level of data quality costs US businesses alone $600bn a year in printing, mailing costs and staff overhead. Blame the instability on the volatility of today’s businesses. D&B reports that in the USA today:

• A new business opens every minute
• A business closes every three minutes
• A CEO changes every minute
• A company name change occurs every two minutes

Overall business data is said to breakdown at a rate of 3-6 per cent a month. That's one-third to three-quarters of data becoming obsolete each year. Bad data is an enormous liability that can lead to:

• Undeliverable communications
• False intelligence
• Annoyed prospects or customers
• An unprofessional image
• Poor reputation
• Lost opportunities

Correcting data fields and standardising formats and data elements – in other words, data hygiening – is one of the least interesting and most tedious tasks in B2B marketing. It takes an ongoing commitment of time and resources. On the other hand, holding on to dirty data can clog up your marketing efforts, and your opportunities.

Marketers' dependence on CRM systems like Salesforce.com and Microsoft Dynamics has highlighted even further the need for data scrubs and input standards. Automating these systems to assist busy sales representatives or customer service reps can help improve data entry practices. Here are some steps to keep your B2B data clean and accurate:

Enter clean data

• Create a data entry protocol so that data is always recorded in a consistent manner
• Use Royal Mail standards for entering addresses
• Ensure that abbreviations are consistent
• Automate entry processes with field dropdowns or prompts where possible
• Create pre-defined lists that fit your product, service or target type

Regularly update the manual process of data entry

• Use a data cleansing service on your house list once or twice a year
• Delete all duplications; watch for prospects that use a business email and a personal email
• Invite your customers to help you maintain their information correctly
• Train staff on data entry rules, repeat quarterly or half-yearly as necessary
• Train customer-facing staff to request information updates at each meeting
• Analyse and confirm your data errors with test mailings
• When using email, pay attention to hard email bounces
• Research, then correct or remove inaccuracies

Direct response demand generation is a key component of many B2B marketing campaigns. Be sure to keep these lists accurate and clean. With a little elbow grease and focus, your lists will generate leads and sales.

 

Editor’s note

Access architects, architectural practices and CPD contacts via RIBAMail, RIBA Insight’s own data rental and mailing fulfilment service. RIBAMail offers an optional ‘one-stop shop’ service encompassing mail merge, printing, enclosure, sealing and despatch. Data selections can be broken down by practice size, geographical location, areas of specialisation, and much more.
Find out how easy direct mail can be when the data is clean and up-to-date.

 

Martine Hunter is Creative Director of Inbound Marketing at MLT Creative, a B2B advertising agency based in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. She holds the Inbound Marketing professional certification and serves the Atlanta chapter of the Business Marketing Association as president of the board of directors.

Read the original article by Martine.

 

 

 

Back to top