You know the old saying….cleanliness is next to great data.
Well, maybe that’s not quite how it goes. But B2B marketers that want to connect with their customers should keep up with their data hygiene.
During a pre-conference intensive at DMA 2014 in San Diego, Ruth P. Stevens, president, eMarketing Strategy, and Cyndi W. Greenglass, senior vice president, strategic solutions, Diamond Marketing Solutions offered several tips for B2B marketers looking to improve their data strategy.
- Key enter the data correctly in the first place.
- Harness customer facing personnel to update the data.
- Use data cleansing software internally or from a service provider and delete obsolete records.
- Allow customers access to their records on your website, so they can make changes themselves.
- Consider outbound phone calling or email to verify records, especially to top customers.
- Less is more—don’t collect a data point if you can’t attach a value to it. There is a cost to acquiring—and maintaining—data.
Stevens noted that the Mrs. Beasley’s baked goods catalog does an annual outbound calling campaign every August, reaching out to accounts that annually buy over $250, to reconfirm their addresses to make sure the holiday catalog mails to the right place. This is a tip B2B marketers should consider any time of the year, she said.
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