If you're a company trading today with a client base - you have a database.
Ever heard the boast...I have a database of 25,000 contacts!
Whoopee! We are so pleased for you, and you should definitely be proud of yourself.
The real question is - how useful is all this data?
Many people focus on quantity when building their databases, forgetting (or just not realising) the key reasons we build our databases to begin with.
Why do you have a database?
Obviously you need a list of your customers, potential clients, & suppliers to be able to easily make contact with as required.
But in today's fast moving world of digital marketing, your database is far more powerful than an address book.
You send e-marketing campaigns, you conduct targeted tele-sales campaigns, you forecast company sales and activity, generate reports on business opportunities and growth - all from your database!
Your database can most certainly be regarded as one of the most highly valued IPs and tools within your company.
So why do we neglect to nurture & spring clean our databases?
Let’s talk about the benefits of cleansing your database regularly:
Greater outreach to your contact base - maximise your marketing ROI (eblasts, mailouts etc).
You are likely investing hundreds, if not thousands of dollars per annum into various forms of written media for marketing purposes. This may include regular e-blasts, blog posts or even physical mailouts. Are you reaping the greatest return on investment you possibly can be? Don't throw your money away. If your database is not clean and up to date, it will affect your campaigns as follows:
Email conversion rates will plummet, meaning you're wasting money on out-of-date contacts
Poor campaign outreach - you will be reaching less contacts than you otherwise could be
2. Increase efficiency & business development potential of your sales team
Everyone knows that sales is the lifeblood of your business. Hence the efficiency and output of your sales people is integral to your company's success. You want them to be maximising every single lead, every single day, and their most frequently used tool... is your database. Cleansing your data can help them as follows:
Increase ease of accurate searching & filtering for targeted sales campaigns (ie by state, region, industry type)
Accurate reporting by revenue streams, locations, industries, sales rep etc,
Find contacts & details quickly as needed
Save time when dialing clients or suppliers
Get to the right person first time every time
Create personalised e-marketing campaigns for greater impact
Assign tasks to correct team members efficiently
3. Other benefits of cleansing my data
One of the largest benefits we see of doing a regular complete data cleanse, is the opportunity to touch base with every single client or contact in a personal way. If you complete your datacleanse via a series of emails & phone calls, this gives you a chance to increase brand awareness through personal contact from your company & listen to feedback from your customers. It may even lead to launching a new product or service!
You may feel that a datacleanse is a big investment. And it is. But if you look at it creatively, and plan for it carefully, you can view it as a massive database wide sales campaign that is building for your company’s future growth. It could become one of the highest ROI activities you complete all year! Do it right and then nurture your database to ensure it stays up-to-date.
The How-To on Data-Cleansing:
When we say cleansing data, what data do we mean exactly?
Updating physical addresses
Updating correct contacts & positions within companies
Updating phone numbers & emails
Assigning the correct inhouse reps
Updating regions, states/areas
Ensuring industry fields are up to date
Ensuring contacts are correctly assigned to companies
Keeping up to date with client mailing/contact preferences
And, how can you cleanse this data?
Google search to update relevant contact information
A Phone call with an Open Question to maximise your time on the phone and potentially re-engage stale, old leads
Email blast asking people if they are 1. Still alive, 2. Want free beer (a compelling value-add :D ), 3. Still want to hear from your company, and find out why/why not
Truth is, most companies have “more important” things to focus on.
At Zembr, our team assists a large number of clients with consistent database management to ensure your Sales Reps and team members are yielding the highest client communications value.
Consider this:
x5000 contacts with x1000 old non-existent companies, each lead costing you approx $1 in monthly email communications ($1000 wasted monthly x 12 = $12,000 wasted in dead contacts per year). Then, you decide to send Xmas cards to the x5000 contacts, costing $6 each (x500 don’t reach the intended person as they are no longer valid = $6 x 500 = $3,000 wasted). Oh whoops, we don’t get much out of the Xmas campaign and rather than finding out why, you decide maybe all the contacts would prefer being posted Easter Eggs the following year, costing $2 per contact (x500 x $2 = $1000 wasted).
$12,000 + $3,000 + $1,000 = $16,000. That’s a lot of money wasted in 1 year from a messy database!
You can contact our team here to discuss the options around Database Cleansing.
