Does knowing that you have a customer named ‘Pooja’ help you in any way if you don’t know where she stays or when she interacted with your brand?
Or, would it help to have two accounts that shared the same purchase history held by a ‘Puja’ and ‘Pooja’?
These are simply examples of poor quality data and it’s something every company has to deal with. Poor quality data isn’t just irritating to deal with, it also affects your ROI. The good news is that cleaning your database is quite easy and you don’t have to do it alone. There are a number of software and data cleansing services available online. The services are aimed at periodically cleaning the data and enriching the same. They can help standardize entries, ensure there are no duplicates, verify accounts and more. Most importantly, improving the quality of your data can dramatically increase your marketing ROI. Here are 3 ways you stand to benefit.
Better Lead Scoring
Not everyone who walks into a store or visits a website is seriously considering making a purchase. Many people are simply window shopping or passing time. Successful businesses differentiate between genuine shoppers and window shoppers through a lead scoring system.
Lead scoring can be explained as a system through which you give customers points for different actions. This could include opening emails, clicking on links, adding products to their basket, the time spent on the website, etc. The higher the score, the more likely the customer is to make a purchase. When they reach a certain score, the business may choose to incentivize their purchase by having someone from the sales team contact them and promote the product or give them a special offer.
Data quality plays a vital role in lead scoring. For example, let’s say a customer has two records, one from when they visited the website and one from an interaction with customer care. The first record may show scores only for time spent on the website but not account for inquiries made through customer care. Thus, the scoring would be incomplete.
On the other hand, let's say a customer reached a stage in the sales funnel where they became a qualified lead. However, your sales team realizes that their contact details are no longer valid. In both cases, the company may miss out on a qualified lead.
The simple solution to this would be to de-duplicate records, standardize entries and check the validity of records regularly.
Personalization for Lead Nurturing
75% of marketers believe personalizing promotional emails would yield a higher click-through rate but only about 30% of brands use personalized emails. Companies find themselves unable to use data to optimize their customer interactions because of multiple reasons- there’s too much data to sift through, the data isn’t standardized, lack of faith on the accuracy of the data, there’s a difference in the type of information available about each customer, etc.
Poor data quality also affects your messaging and timing. For example, let’s say a customer bought a dress for a 1-year-old girl from a fashion retailer. If the brand knew the purchase was made a year ago, they could promote dresses for 2-year-old girls. However, if this information was missing they would still be promoting dresses for 1 year old girls which, unfortunately, the customer would not be interested in.
Data cleansing creates consistency in customer data. Duplicate records from different departments can be merged to create a more complete account. It also ensures your data is up to date. Thus, you have easy-to-access data to personalize messaging and nurture leads that have a high chance of a conversion.
Optimize Costs
Investing in keeping your data clean may seem like an additional expense but it can reduce your overall costs. Having a database of 100 accounts of which 50 are duplicates will result in you spending double the amount you need to. Cleaning the database to de-duplicate records prunes the list and cuts down marketing automation fees.
Similarly, validating the email addresses on your mailing list reduces the risk of emails bouncing back. If too emails bounce or get tagged as spam, your account may be blacklisted. If this were to happen, you may have to incur additional expenses on getting off the blacklist.
Thus the relationship between data cleaning and costs is simple. The cleaner your data, the lower your costs and the higher your ROI.
Cleaning your database regularly allows you to derive maximum value from it. It gives you insights into the customer as well as market opportunities and helps streamline your marketing efforts. Whether you’re looking at generating new leads, increasing sales or engaging with customers, all your marketing ventures can benefit from access to clean data.
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