Taking proper care of data to ensure the highest quality of information is crucial in order to make smarter business decisions. In turn, smarter decisions lead to an increase in sales and ultimately more money in your pocket. And isn’t that something that we all want? It's achievable with data quality testing.
Preserving data quality is essential to the success of any marketing campaign effort. Only when you have clean, accurate, and well organized data, can you be on your A-game and effectively communicate with your prospects and customers. Unfortunately, there isn’t a magic button to press to maintain data integrity. It takes planning, preparation, and commitment to keep a database clean with quality contact information.
Below are 4 aspects of data quality testing and management that your company should be dedicating time and resources on.
Accuracy
Accuracy includes both form and content. How is the data collected? For example, are dates recorded as 1/05/1991 or 1 May 1991 or some other variation? Specific formats should be identified for all necessary fields. The content in your database is only as valuable as it is accurate. Clearly identifying formats and adjusting forms as necessary is essential in order to organize, understand and utilize the data in a way that will create repeat customers and attract new ones.
Deliverability
Improved data quality results in improved deliverability rates. Double-opt ins can correctly confirm email addresses, address verification can correct simple typing errors and implementing processes for bounced and inactive email addresses will enable you to keep data clean and current. And in this technological age, you must be careful to honor all unsubscribe requests or risk being blacklisted. If you are prevented from deliver messages to your prospects, all marketing efforts will be doomed from the start.
Duplicate Identification
Data cleansing will recognize duplicative contact information and send notifications to an assigned user to review and either merge or overwrite a specific contact. Additionally, other preventative measures can be taken on the front end when customers are entering data through a form on your website. For example, triggers can be set that prevent customers from creating a new account if they have previously created one with the same email address. Instead, they can be redirected to a login screen where they can reset a password if necessary.
Duplicates not only cause confusion but waste sales rep’s time. Avoiding this is imperative for productivity. Scheduling daily or weekly time slots to purge dupes from the system will save your company time and money.
Campaign Management – Segmentation
Customized segments create personalized buying experiences. These types of experiences help build buyer confidence and trust. As a trusted industry leader, customers turn to you for answers, and because of this, they are more likely to purchase your services or products.
Targeted campaigns allow marketers to hone in on specific buyer interests, and share the appropriate amount of information based on where that customer is in the buying process. Segments can also be created for inactive customers with a plan to re-engage them. It is through segmentation that you can not only meet, but exceed customer expectations.
Managing data quality is no easy task. You can’t set it and forget. It takes time, talent, and expertise to design and manage an effective data cleansing system. But, with the proper tools and resources in place, maintaining clear, accurate, and timely data will undoubtedly improve your customer’s experience as well as your ROI. If your business needs assistance in implementing a data quality management processes, or analysis of your current program, Measured Results Marketing can help you. Please call us at 571-606-3106 or email to schedule a time to discuss your specific data quality testing needs.
