If you are like many marketing leaders you’d say, “We have a ton of data, but it’s not clear what we really have or how to leverage it.” The truth is, customer data is one of the most important company assets you have, but like any other asset it needs to be managed and maintained. Data quality is key for senior marketing management to gain meaningful and productive insights.

The cost of dirty data

  • Customers receive poorly targeted or multiple emails
  • Projected response or revenue is way off base
  • Bad emails impact company inbox deliverability
  • Deliveries or shipments don’t reach customers
  • Lost revenue due to incorrect or invalid invoicing data
  • Customer frustration when communications are incorrect

Ongoing data management and data hygiene will ensure accuracy, compliance, and consistency particularly when you are combining different databases. In a world where customer information is forever changing, people move, people relocate, change companies, or retire–these ongoing changes need to be tracked and updated in your company database. Customers also have multiple email accounts that are important to be able to track and verify.

Easy fix: outsource your data cleansing and data hygiene

Data cleansing and hygiene is a key and necessary business function that is easy to outsource.  In most cases, the process is virtually seamless and helps maintain critical quality in customer information:

  • Low cost and Low risk outsourcing requires no increase in staff
  • Flexible resources can be used only as needed

It’s easier to experiment with new ideas without a big investment.