Marketing automation and your contact records: A five part series that every marketer can’t miss (part 1)
Are you keeping up with the competition? If yes, then you’re likely using one of these excellent marketing automation platforms to run your campaigns:
No doubt, the planning, coordinating, and executing of your marketing efforts has never been easier. But, here’s the kicker: these platforms are only as good as the quality of your contact data.
There’s a common misconception that the quality of contact record data is automatically maintained within marketing automation platforms, but, in reality, these platforms are not built to correct contact records for accuracy nor genuineness.
Without accurate, genuine, and up-to-date contact records, even the most sophisticated and expensive platforms are handicapped from performing well. According to SiriusDecisions, it is estimated that over 25% contact records contain inaccurate or critical errors. In addition, 70% of your contact records will become obsolete/change over the year. Over time and quite systematically, the integrity of your contact records will become suspect, translating to missed lead opportunities across multiple marketing channels. So how can you decipher whether the quality of your contact records is good or bad? This is something we will look at in this five-part series.
Reaping the benefits
Switching gears, let’s imagine that your marketing automation is working at its full potential. You’re in a position to see some serious return on investment, along with reaching other important marketing and sales goals. We’ve listed three key benefits below to demonstrate why good data is at the heart of maximizing your marketing automation performance:
- Cutting expenses—Some marketing platforms charge by the contact record. Simply correcting or eliminating bad records will result in cost savings. And this is just the tip of the iceberg. We will cover this in more detail as part of the series.
- Increasing revenue—Handing off accurate contact records to your sales team means better contact rates and more sales, not to mention a happy sales team.
- Accurately tracking and monitoring marketing campaigns—Good decision-making is based on good data. Accurate, measurable data is ESSENTIAL in order for these campaigns to be successful. Data needs to be precise, starting with your contact records.
Sounds so simple right? It absolutely can be, again, as long as your data is accurate, genuine, and up-to-date. And, we’ll repeat this point as many times as it takes: in doing so, you WILL save time and money!
Working smarter, not harder
Think about it: managing contact records is labor-intensive, especially in a large company. Marketing and sales teams need to establish a good workflow to efficiently turn leads into profits. And as we’ve discussed, even the best resources might need a little support themselves in order to get top results. How frustrating is it to hear complaints from your sales team, time, and time again, about bad contact information, incomplete profiles, or lead rejection? As the size, speed, and values of information increase, you might soon be spiraling out of control. The last thing you want is to contribute to the poor quality of customer data which costs U.S. businesses a staggering $611 BILLION annually. Bottom line: there is no room for error. Teams must be able to trust each other and work efficiently together. Period.
So, consider this your wake-up call as we embark on a 5-part series into the realm of contact data integrity and the role it plays in your company. It’s imperative that marketing teams understand what “bad data” is and how it affects their bottom line. We’ll wrap up the series with some solutions about how you can take action and rid your marketing automation platform of bad contact data. Before signing off, here’s something to chew on until our next post:
It’s not a question of “IF” you have bad contact data, it’s a question of “HOW MUCH”.
If you are interested, Service Objects provides a free Data Quality Scan that will give you insight into the quality and accuracy of your contact data. Click here to get your free scan.
