Good Data. Bad Data. Not Knowing the Difference Might Just Kill Your Marketing Strategy.

The current business marketplace is exploding with masses of data, with employees and departments continuously producing new information that must be stored and analysed.

Despite the painful intricacies concerned with proactively analysing this data to make any patterns or insights for best business decisions, this is the world that we now work and live in. A recent study predicted that by 2020 there will be more digital data bits than stars in our physical universe. Now that’s a crazy thought, right?

But in this article we’re not talking about masses of departmental data sources that are collated, we’re talking about data that is crucial to the success of the Marketing function.

The Marketing department typically relies on a whole plethora of different data sources, to ensure that each marketing activity is angled with a relevant value proposition to the relevant set of audience demographics.

Let’s just take a look at some of the data types that Marketing teams would utilise for designing an outreach campaign:

• Customer data; contact details for those who already trust you, along with their purchasing history and their preferences

• Competitor data; to ensure that USP’s and value propositions are designed to position you above the rest

• Recent market research results; to align messaging with what the marketplace is telling you and not what you ‘think’ the marketplace wants to hear

The previous three points are just a small section of the data that gets used and are relatively easy to obtain from internal systems and also to maintain in terms of accuracy.

However, as we explore the next three data sources, which are all important components of B2B marketing, these start to paint a bleaker picture and highlight how difficult it can be for Marketing departments to maintain data hygiene best practice.

• New business / prospect data

• Web mining / web search data

• Download form data

What are the challenges?

Typical Challenges for New Business / Prospect Data

• Aged company and contact credentials

• Resource needed for cleansing

• Minimal intelligence

• Poor quality

• Duplicate records

• Not enough data or too much volume

• Lack of segmentation capability

Typical Challenges for Web Mining / Web Search Data

• Lack of company credentials

• Lack of company insight

• Resource needed for cleansing

Typical Challenges for Download Form Data

• High level of inaccuracies

• Bogus details often provided

• Lack of company insight

• B2B compliance issues: personal email addresses frequently populated

• Resource needed for cleansing

Not only do these challenges have a negative impact on a marketing strategy, but they can also cause a number of compliance issues, particularly in the world of GDPR.

What is the solution?

1. Carry out a database replenishment project, to de-duplicate data, eradicate stale / irrelevant records and enrich existing data with fresh intelligence

2. Adopt a data replenishment life cycle; every 6-12 months will suffice

3. When / if your database is in tip top shape, acquire new intelligent data across your target audience demographics

4. If you have no dedicated resource for cleansing or profiling your web mining data or download form data, provide this to your chosen data intelligence agency for enrichment; avoid uplifting this type of data to your CRM prior to enrichment as this will only clog up your database!

Just think to yourself, what’s good data and what’s bad data? After all, not knowing the difference may just kill your marketing strategy.