Take the Clean Data path to Success

Your email deliverability success depends on your database cleanliness.  It is vital that you have the correct email addresses of the recipients you are trying to reach. If your database is ‘dirty’, it will inevitably mean failure. It is indispensable that you regularly clean and maintain your list to remove invalid addresses and improve your deliverability rates.

Elements of a dirty email list include:

• Incorrectly formatted email addresses
• Addresses that have previously “hard bounced”
• Addresses that have previously unsubscribed but are still active in the list
• Addresses from expired, invalid domains

You may be surprised to know that 75% of commercial businesses believe that they are losing as much as 73% of revenue due to poor data quality (Experian QAS) and Poor data quality costs US businesses more than $600 billion annually (Data Warehousing Institute).

List management is an ongoing procedure as people do not stay put. They move jobs, change their phone numbers and create new email addresses.  It is highly recommended that you keep your database updated with the latest information. These are few tips that will help you do just that:

Maintain consistent format. You should have consistent terms and formats across a given field. E.g. the date field: Ensure you maintain DD-MM-YYYY or MM-DD-YYYY throughout the database.

Do proper segmentation. Break down strings of data into multiple fields so you can more effectively standardize data elements with greater accuracy.

Verify content. Fields may appear populated but are not accurate (for example, a phone number may contain letters). Your data-cleansing process should identify and correct these anomalies so your data is fit for use.

Eliminate duplicates. Identify matches and eliminate duplicate records. These records cause unnecessary strain on your resources.

Do away with hard bounces. In the case of emails, even a few hard bounces will get your IP address blacklisted. Take extra precaution in this regard.

Email deliverability success relies completely upon clean lists. Prepackaged Marketing Data makes sure the lists are fresh, updated and always accurate. Contact us today.

Add Quality to your Data

We cannot speak enough about the importance of quality data. We know that it is the foundation of your marketing effort. So here are some tips that will help you improve your data quality.

Audit is a must

Have a process in place to track your mail deliverability. It is vital to know which emails bounced back and update your database accordingly. This will help improve the effectiveness of your communication and overall planning in the long term.

Verify information at the start

Procure all required information when the contact is engaged. This is the right time to get information and make corrections if necessary.  This can be done through a web form, a telephone call, or even a live web chat. Incomplete information will hinder the work of your sales team. Ensure that you get all elements in the contact form filled.

Know your data inside out

Understand your data. Be on top of it. You should be able to identify data entry trends. Find out the sources of your bad data and eliminate it with right data verification and standardization processes. Tracking your mail deliverability will help you understanding your data quality challenges.

Get all involved

Get all departments involved in the data management process. As data quality leads to huge business benefits, this effort should be shared by all employees who capture, access, manipulate, and update CRM records. Look for tools that empower your staff to enhance data quality.

Refresh database

Data expires very quickly, especially in this fast-paced digital world. Regular database check-ups is therefore a must.

We at Prepackaged Marketing Data work towards providing you with the best data to make your marketing efforts bear fruits. Contact us for a free consultation. 

5 Ways to Improve Data Quality

I have been writing about the benefits of effective email marketing. And it is common knowledge that your email marketing effort will not bring in the desired results unless you have good database. So before you begin building your email campaign, make sure you get your hands on the relevant database. Quality of the data can be ensured by following these tips:

  

1) Keep track of your mails

You should have a process in place to track the status of the mails you have sent. Emails that bounced back or were returned should be marked and the database updated accordingly. A proactive database is a necessity for improved communication effectiveness.

2) Double-check information before database entry

It is always easier and better to verify the information properly before making it a part of your database. Cross-checking later can be difficult. Correcting contact information is always easier when the client is engaged.

3) Know your data well

Understanding your data quality challenges and making required system changes over time are vital.

4) Get experts to manage data

Appoint multiple data quality managers who know the in and out of data quality management.

5) Have regular database checkups

Data expires pretty quickly. A regular database check-up to ensure that old data is refreshed is indispensable. To ensure contact data integrity, supplement real-time address verification efforts with regular bulk processing.

We, at Prepackaged Marketing Data, work towards providing you with the best data to make your marketing efforts bear fruits. Contact us for a free consultation. 

Grow a healthy database!

Growing your database is the most basic requirement of a successful marketing campaign. A large list is often necessary for maximizing your ROI. However, large list full of ‘dead’ or irrelevant contacts will not lead to a great result. A balance between quality and quantity is especially important.

So how does one get hold of the right database? There are countless examples of marketers who have ‘taken the easy way out’ by purchasing a database. However, what these people quickly learn is that purchasing a database is not the easy option. The sender can receive countless bounces and complaints. A list bought in a hurry can result in the sender being blacklisted or even prosecuted if the contacts on the list were not legitimately obtained.

Growing your database with the right contacts will not only provide a better result, it will also ensure you remain SPAM compliant. So how do you build and maintain the perfect database without wasting time and resources? It is easier than you think. The main strategy is to develop methods of capturing contacts into your existing processes and assets. Even a small change such as setting up a laptop with a registration form at an industry event can generate great results for your business.

If you are really short of time or resources you should always approach a reliable data provider with proven track record and testimonials. Always seek a sample of the required data before making the final call.

The Indispensable Database

“In the 21st century, the database is the marketplace.” - Stan Rapp, MRM Partners Worldwide

Midst all the emerging shiny new technologies and digital platforms, the relevance of database has only increased. Creating, maintaining and using a database of customers’ is utmost important. Database holds much relevance because all your marketing efforts are based on it.

Who exactly are your customers? What age are they? Where do they come from? What are their characteristics & lifestyles? These are the questions your database should answer. 

All relevant details about your customers are crucial to understand exactly who your target market is. It also ensures that future marketing activities are more relevant. Measuring the effectiveness & ROI of your marketing efforts cannot be achieved unless you capture, store and utilize the information from your database. 

Your customer details must be in one place so they’re easily accessible for speed and accuracy with the ability to collate and measure that data. The database should be carefully maintained and regularly updated, to make full and effective use of a database thus created.

A good database will help you understand:

• Cost Per Lead
• Cost Per Sale
• Conversion Ratios – Enquiries to Sales
• Customer trends & habits
• Customer location
• Customer demographics
• Customer lifestyle

We will be happy to tell you about our database marketing services.

Better data = Better conversion rate

The returns on your marketing efforts depend on the success rate of your marketing messages. It is pertinent that it reaches the right people. Email marketing is an effective and viable method to reach maximum number of people. However, the effectiveness of your campaign depends on the quality of the data.

Along with effective content, Data Quality is also one of the most crucial requirements in achieving effective email marketing. Your interesting and engaging content for your email can be an utter waste if you end up sending it to a ‘bad’ list.

What components make a bad list?

• Duplicate email addresses
• Dead email addresses e.g. address of a person who is no longer the employee of a company
• Wrong email addresses
• Incorrect email formats
• Spacing errors

So, it is essential to remove bad elements in the data before sending email marketing campaigns. For this, the database has to be cleansed.  This cleansing can be achieved using two methods:

• Software
• Manual

Software is more effective as manual cleaning only eliminates spelling and spacing errors and duplicate emails. However, some data must be removed manually – such as returned and bounced emails.

Uncleansed data can only lead to futile marketing efforts, both in the form of the salespeople following invalid leads and unnecessary expenditure over irrelevant emails. The best practice is to cleanse the data before starting a new campaign. Make sure to remove any incorrect or unsuccessful email addresses from previous campaigns.

If you fail to clean your data it could result in you being blacklisted from both your email marketing provider and also from email providers, which is bad for your brand, reputation and also your marketing.

Having a clean database will improve efficiency and will likely improve your response rates, as a more focused and relevant database is used.  

Make your foundation strong!

Database is pivotal to your business and if used properly, can create effective communication that people respond to. Since data is the chief source of lead generation and ROI, you cannot make the mistake of taking it for granted.  However, data is getting increasingly abundant, making it even more difficult to get the data that matters.

Analysts estimate that the volume of business data worldwide, across all companies, doubles every 1.2 years.

Quality of the data has to be ensured and data cleansing helps in that. Maintaining a database is as important as building a database. Top marketers, today, say that focus on quality data is the key to their successes. They build their creative campaigns, precise segmentation, accurate lead scoring, and relevant personalization on the foundation of great data quality. 

Data should be the all in all when you make a marketing automation investment, or look to maximize the return you get from it. It’s the foundation upon which everything in marketing rests. And if you don’t have clean and consistent data, your efforts will be built on the shakiest of foundations. Today, segmentation, personalization, lead scoring, lead routing, or marketing analysis are not daunting tasks.  Improving the quality of your data can greatly improve your effectiveness as a marketer and can help you create more focused messaging.  Valid, correct and comprehensive lists of your choice will make your marketing campaigns effective.