A common problem that marketing and sales teams experience is how to create and maintain a hygienic database. Hygienic, in this instance, means making sure only clean and complete data is uploaded, and your team is taking measures to increase the quality of existing data.
You likely receive a variety of lists from your sales and event teams, so your data must be examined for quality before uploading. Here are a few digital marketing basics for database management:
- Scrub all third-party lists: These lists may come from webinars, tradeshows, associations, partners, or more. Make sure to remove non-leads and inactive emails/contact info. You may also want to compare the information with your current database to ensure the list hasn’t been previously uploaded and associate the new contacts with the appropriate campaign. Consider using an email verification tool like Briteverify to expedite this process.
- Set up company email addresses that relevant parties can access: Creating email addresses like info@xcompany.com alleviates the pressure on one person to review and respond to all inbound communication and creates a plan for when team members are out of the office. Once these email addresses are created, make sure to manage OOO replies. Pro tip: If you receive email responses that a contact is no longer with the company you are targeting, make this adjustment in your database.
- Normalize the data: When uploading a new list, make sure the data is normalized to match the rest of the information in your database, i.e., matching capitalization, job titles, and location descriptions. This process will help you not miss contacts in future email sends.
- Ask all team members to assist: Everyone who has access to your database must be looking out for discrepancies or missing information and willing to make corrections when they run into them. Sales and account management teams work closely with this information daily and should be able to spot issues quickly. This collaboration is critical for maintaining a hygienic database.
- Avoid duplicate contacts: Many database systems will alert you when you upload a duplicate contact, but some will likely slip by. Ensure to instate an ongoing d-duping process to eliminate duplicates for more accurate email sends and analytics. There are tools you can use to help with this process as well.
Creating and maintaining a hygienic database is essential and requires ongoing attention and care. Rest assured, many successful companies deal with unclean data, but there are many ways to improve the quality of your data. Make sure uploading clean data is a top priority for your team, and you will be well on your way to a more hygienic database!
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