
Although your database can be your greatest ally, it can also be your enemy:
- Acting as a barrier between you and your customers if records are badly organised or maintained;
- Requiring proper management (in other words, funding) to ensure that it remains up to date; and
- Offering an inaccurate picture of your customers and poor ROI if your data isn’t clean.
Whose job is it anyway?
Many companies are maintaining their database on an ad hoc basis. According to Capscan’s 2012 ‘Data Quality Insight Report‘, 40.9 per cent of respondents said that their business didn’t have a company-wide data quality management strategy in place. And it gets worse: 14.4 per cent thought that it was a CEO/MD’s responsibility to ensure data quality. But 19.2 per cent stated ‘no, it should be the CIO’s!’ Such a disjointed approach can create multiple database issues – non-standardised record entry processes, duplication, inaccuracies and more. To ensure that your database is managed properly, it needs someone to act as its champion.1. Clone wars
Remove duplicates from your records – sending out materials to the same person or company more than once costs money and makes your company look unprofessional and disorganised. While time and labour intensive, spotting and removing duplications should be seen as a top priority.2. MIA
The danger of data entry is that certain details can be left out; such omissions could be down to human error, someone being in a hurry or just plain sloppiness, but the net result is the same – missing information that harms your company. Plug the holes in your records now or pay the price later when a vital piece of information is unfindable in your database.3. Consistency crisis
4. Be gone ‘gone-aways’
Customers and prospects move house, businesses fold or change premises; all impact on your database by:- Wasting your marketing budget on ‘dead’ records;
- Decreasing your direct mail campaigns’ ROI; or
- Damaging your brand.
5. Be legal
It’s essential that all records on your database are data privacy compliant – or you could find yourself in hot water with the Information Commissioner’s Office to the tune of up to £500,000… If telemarketing to customers or businesses, all records must be checked against the Telephone Preference Service (TPS) and the Corporate Telephone Preference Service (CTPS) to ensure you have the prospects’ consent to receive unsolicited calls. For email marketers, check that customers or prospects details meet current UK legislation.Share this story