Poor data quality is extremely risky when it comes to how you market and operate your business. The ultimate goal is to earn profits by using data to turn website visitors into customers. This process is also important for brick-and-mortar businesses. Poor data makes business owners, managers and other leaders perform unnecessary processes that are ineffective and unproductive. To illustrate, approximately $15B was spent in 2018 by businesses, based upon
bad data.
This amount of spending, in some instances, could potentially tank businesses. In those cases, poor data management prevents them from using resources that could spark their operations to succeed. CRM, or customer relationship management, is essential these days for businesses looking to improve their overall data quality.
This strategy is one that allows you to effectively manage engagement with your current and potential customers. CRM uses detailed analysis and produces data that businesses can benefit from to focus their marketing and sales activities. Let’s take a look at some strategies that can be used in order to improve the data quality you are getting.
Checking the Data
One of the first steps in the process of improving data quality is checking it. This is very important for business owners who utilize mailing lists and email lists for marketing campaigns. There are scrubbing programs available that can be used to determine if the information being used is accurate. However, manually searching the data may be time-consuming but effective.
Furthermore, there are data validation services available for businesses and companies to use. The expenses associated with these services should be considered an investment in your operations. Good data is essential to achieving sales and marketing objectives. Dun and Bradstreet, a data, analytics, and insights provider for businesses, is one example in this category and has software for this type of validation.
Setting Strict Data Standards
Another good way to ensure good quality data is to set strict standards. This can be done by limiting variations for the type of data you are looking for. At the same time, it is important to remember to increase data structure. This could mean the difference between a search for some keywords and those with acronyms, as well.
The process by which your CRM system acquires data should be precise. This alone is a way to get the data that you want. Some experts say that this is also an effective approach for cleaning the data itself. The more dependable the data the more opportunities you have to use it. Strict standards are how successful businesses connect the dots between marketing and revenue goals.
Observing Management Standards
The process of actually observing the data management standards that you use is crucial. This is elaborated by
Trailhead, to create, process, and maintain your data. There are terms related to these standards that have individual meanings. Knowing what these are and how they can benefit you in improving data quality is critical.
Naming is one of the terms that are used here to set details for your records, as it has to do with abbreviations or suffixes. This prevents bad data because only standard abbreviations or suffixes are allowed. Businesses that need monthly updates for active leads remember quality as another term for data results. The ability to score and measure this data offers additional benefits for operations.
Confirming Email Addresses
Email blasts are trendy ways to market, currently, and are being used in virtually every industry. These are sent to existing customers who have provided their contact information. In order to benefit from these emails, the email addresses have to be correct. Incorrect email addresses leads to bad data that ends up wasting time and resources.
It is necessary to use systems that help you to confirm this information. There are also traditional uses for physical addresses in marketing plans. These must be confirmed, as well, so those materials are mailed to the proper place. This material may be a way to advertise new locations, products, as well as, sales and promotions. Point-of-sale sites should verify the data by asking users to confirm their information a second time.
Cross-Checking for Duplicates
It is important to save your staff time by cleaning up bad data effects. Duplicate email addresses, for example, are included here. In some cases, this occurs when customers use different name spellings. Sending duplicate emails may result in SPAM designations that are not being seen by existing and potential opportunities.
Having reliable IT and cybersecurity protection facilitates this process tremendously. If there is an outage, your company risks loosing important data you could use to improve client relationships. Companies like
Nerds Support protect online operations from downtime, cyber threats and outages so you can focus on running your business.
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