Managing marketing data isn’t easy. Large organisations have multiple sources of data – CRM systems, ERP and transactional systems, email lists, lists purchased for marketing campaigns, lists of attendees at events, information from partners, “do not call” lists. These data sources are often held in multiple systems and are stored in many formats. It’s a mess.

To make it even harder, things change and they change quickly.

People leave, move departments, get promoted, retire, get married, change their names. Even a completely accurate marketing database (if such a thing existed) will be at least 25% out of date within 12 months.

CRM systems were supposed to solve this problem – but they didn’t. Most of them aren’t well maintained. Salespeople don’t keep them up to date, marketing lists aren’t incorporated, transactional data isn’t updated. In fact the more data sources companies have and the more people who are involved in keeping a CRM up to date, the more inaccurate it’s likely to be.

And dirty data is dangerous.

Look at it from the perspective of a prospect. You are probably someone else’s prospect. So ask yourself, how often do you receive wasteful and annoying marketing communications? Direct mails sent to old addresses, emails that get your name or title wrong, existing suppliers trying to sell you things you already own, phone calls about products that are totally unsuitable for you.

When this happens, what do you think? If this leaves you with a bad impression of the company concerned – how confident are you that you aren’t doing this to your own customers and prospects?

There are numerous studies that look at the impact of dirty marketing data and the associated costs. These include;

• The cost of following up inaccurate or worthless “leads”
• Lost opportunities because of poor targeting and non-delivery of messages
• Waste of sales people’s and marketing people’s time
• The cost of returned and undelivered mail
• Brand and reputation damage

According to Gartner, $600 billion is lost every year in the USA through badly targeted marketing campaigns – and this doesn’t take into account the brand damage done by sending the wrong message to the wrong person.

How can you be sure that your message is getting to the right person? Just as important, how can you be sure you aren’t sending the wrong message to the right person and leaving a bad taste in their mouth?

WebONE Integrated Marketing Database 

Our clients know how important accurate marketing data is, which is why they use the Database Dept.’s cloud based  WebONE Integrated Marketing Database “data as a service” to;

• Ensure ongoing accuracy through regular updates from multiple sources
• Integrate with their internal CRM and other systems
• Easily incorporate “one off” data sources such as event attendees
• Identify and segment their top 100 (or top 1,000) “must win” accounts
• Manage all marketing communications (and privacy issues) from one central point
• Get the right message to the right person, AND avoid getting the wrong message to the right person
• Conduct effective targeted Authentic Relationship Management programs and campaigns

For more information click here