This is the so-called “digital age”. We can stream Films, send photos to our friends, buy new shoes, book an all inclusive holiday and do your weekly shop all at the same time. With information so readily available, it is inevitable that big data will become integrated into our everyday lives.

What is big data?

In this ever developing digital world, people (whether they know it or not) are providing data with every ‘click’, enquiry or purchase when interacting with businesses. Data is essentially user’s (you) footprint across the wider digital, and non-digital, landscape.

This data can include your gender, age, location and most recently or frequently purchased items. All gathered from a multitude of sources, such as online forms, eCommerce websites, social networks and bricks and mortar shops.

So why is ‘clean data’ important?

Put simply, data is used to provide insight. Businesses, when armed with this, are able to improve the everyday decisions they make. Here are 3 important reasons to attain clean data on your customer:

  • Having inconsistent, incomplete data e.g. phone numbers missing or address fields missing, will have a really negative affect on how successful your campaign is. What having clean data enables is personalisation. Personal communications are essentially more relevant to the individual, and are more likely to result in sales!
  • Another important aspect to having a clean database is having 1 record per customer. The more duplicate records you have, the less effective your database marketing will be. If the same customer appears 3-4 times, you will essentially be sending those irrelevant messages, leading onto a disgruntled customers. Remember the goal for all great email marketers are to gain “loyal brand advocates”
  • Current, up to date data is key to ensuring your message is received. There is no point in having old email addresses in your CRM, it will just bounce back. By not having up to date address will result in wastage, costing you for the privilege. Most ESP’s will partner up with an email checkers such as: BriteVerify to ensure you are protected from this.

Essentially, the cleaner the data, the more relevant your communications will be to that individual; increasing the likelihood of purchase and positive customer relationships moving forward.

And you really have no excuse! Managing data has never been easier thanks to the ever evolving technology at our disposal.

Here are 5 points to ensuring a clean database:

  • De-dupe any leads. Ensure you don’t have more than 1 account for 1 customer
  • Health check – look for inactive accounts
  • Review where your leads are coming from. Stop bad leads at source
  • Back up your leads into CSV’s and segment into buckets from active to inactive
  • Delete – get rid of all filtered accounts that are bucketed in IN-active/ Duplicates

Now you have your clean database, you should see an increase in engagement which will ultimately mean higher rate of sale figures.

All the aforementioned is one aspect to ensuring your email reaches the intended recipient. Couple this with great content and amazing creative, you should see deliverability rates considerably increase!

Further reading: How to improve your email deliverability

Download What is Deliverability