Data management and data hygiene are probably the most overlooked components of a successful marketing program, right after the content. According to research conducted in America, US Enterprises are in the race to dramatically improve their data quality, and therefore their revenue and customer engagement. We are having similar conversations with our Australian Enterprise clients and prospects, with a new and growing recognition of the importance of clean data. According to these findings:
- 25% of the average B2B database is inaccurate
- 60% of companies surveyed had an overall data health scale of ‘unreliable’
- 80% of companies have ‘risky’ phone contact records
- 75% of respondants said record completedness was questionable or unreliable
DCA focuses on five key areas for marketing data best practice
Email deliverability measures whether an email will make it into the inbox of its intended recipient. Successful email marketing campaigns rely on accuracy in this area, as emails need to be received before any action can be taken.
Address deliverability is the measure of whether a piece of direct mail sent via the post is able to reach the post office box or street address of its intended recipient. Undeliverable mail is not only ineffective; it is also a waste of effort, resources and postage.
Completeness of records is important as data from contact records is now used for a wide array of marketing activities. Whether the information is used for lead routing, analytics, segmentation or content serving, understanding more about a contact helps improve brand interactions. It is not only the accuracy of data that matters, but also the completeness of the record.
Record duplication is the repetition of records in a database. This can be costly, affect brand reputation and prevent accurate profiling of contacts as information is split across different records.
Phone contactability is often overlooked, with marketers focused on ensuring email deliverability. However, phone contactability becomes important further down the sales funnel: if you can’t talk to someone, it’s very hard to sell them anything.
