The business world of today is highly data-driven and this makes data the most valuable asset for almost every enterprise out there. This is especially true for organizations that launch multi-channel marketing campaigns.
That being said, there’s one key problem you don’t want to ignore when it comes to customer data. The thing is if your customer database is left idle for a long time, the information within your database becomes old and redundant. This mainly happens because most people tend to change their email id, postal addresses, and phone numbers quite often.
Most of the businesses’ top priority is to keep data records of prospective clients for immediate use and future reference. But, simply amassing large stacks of data won’t be of much use to your organization if the collected information isn’t accurate.
“It all starts with data. Data leads to insights and actions. But you need to have the right data first”~ Elmer Smith, VP of Customer Strategy, JC Penney
In order for your business to plan successful CRM initiatives, it needs accurate, relevant data. And this is where you can benefit from data cleansing.
So, What Does Data Cleansing Means?
Data cleansing refers to a process of removing, updating, and rectifying corrupt or inaccurate data within a database. This helps in ensuring that you have data that is of top-notch quality.
By procuring the right data cleansing services, organizations can address several challenges they counter daily such as incorrect invoice data, error rectification, troubleshooting, and manual data correction. All these result in high costs, which you can minimize by maintaining a clean and competent database.
Why Cleanse Your Customer Database?
Studies suggest that within a period of 12 months, 30 percent of B2B data becomes redundant and invalid. This could lead to massive wastage of your marketing budget. Consequently, it’s significantly important for businesses to have accurate, up-to-date information about their customers.
When you use customer data that is outdated and irrelevant, you not only run the risk of losing your existing customers but also fail to implement effective marketing initiatives.
There are numerous reasons why you need to cleanse your customers’ data. Here are some:
- Helps in spotting inactive and unresponsive contacts within the current customers’ database
- Saves both time and resources which you might end up losing while campaigning with outdated data
- You have access to a database that is accurate and complies with GDPR and CAN-SPAM regulations
- Helps in reaching the right audiences for maximum responses
With most industries today relying on data for business growth, it’s crucial to maintain error-free data. Following are some adverse effects you might face if you leave your customer database unattended for a long time:
- Data decay will lead to about 25 percent loss of your database within a year
- Irrelevant data equals wastage of time & money on prospects who aren’t even getting your message
- High bounce rates
5 Key Data Cleansing Benefits
Following are some of the key advantages of data cleansing:
Better Decision Making
In any business, customer data is the key foundation of plausible and effective decision making. As per Sirius Decisions’ study, an average B2B company experiences an increase in their data every twelve to eighteen months, and while the information might be clean at first, errors can take place at any moment. Yet several corporations fail to prioritize the management of data quality.
Quality data and accurate information are critical to decision-making. With clean data, you can not only enjoy better analytics but also far-ranging business intelligence, which consequently leads to improved decision-making & execution. Ultimately, having clean, accurate customer information can help b2b organizations in making better decisions and make way for business growth in the long-term.
Improve Customer Acquisition Efforts
Another advantage of cleansing your data is that it can help in boosting the efficiency of your customer acquisition efforts. This is because data cleansing can help you create a more efficient customer list with accurate information. In order for your marketing initiatives to be effective, you need to make sure your data is clean, up-to-date, and accurate by following regular data quality routines. Plus, data cleansing can help manage multi-channel client data seamlessly. This will give you the opportunity to roll out effective marketing initiatives in the long run as you’ll be able to determine the best tactic to engage with your target audience effectively.
Boost Productivity
With a clean, well-maintained database in place, organizations can rest assured that their staff members are being productive with their working hours. Besides that, it can also help in preventing your staff from marketing to leads with redundant information. When your employees get to work with hygienic data, it maximized their productivity and efficiency. This is also the reason why clean data helps in reducing fraud risks as the workers have access to accurate customer or vendor details when refunds or payments are initiated.
Streamline Business Practices
Eliminating duplicate information from the customer database can aid organizations to streamline their business activities, thereby saving plenty of money. If accurate and reliable sales data is available, you can easily assess the performance of a service or product in the market. With data cleansing and the right analytics, enterprises can spot opportunities for launching a new service or product which the customers might like, or it can even highlight several marketing avenues that your company can try. For instance, if one of your marketing campaigns fails, you can look at other marketing avenues with better consumer response data and execute them.
Increase in Revenue
By working towards boosting the consistency and the accuracy of your data, you can significantly improve your response rates, which translates to a revenue boost. Reliable data can help your business to significantly minimize bounce rates. If there is ever a situation where you need to convey promotions or sensitive information to your client directly, correct data can help you reach them quickly and conveniently. Data cleansing helps in eradicating duplicate data effectively. Additionally, inaccurate information can drastically drain your organization’s resources as you’ll have to spend twice the amount on a single client.
Conclusion
As you can see, data cleansing can offer numerous benefits to your organization. It helps you achieve your business goals with ease. Having a reliable data can help you better ROI on your marketing efforts.
Meta Description: If you want your marketing initiatives to be effective, it’s crucial to have a clean database. Data cleansing techniques can help you in maintaining a database that consists of accurate, error-free information.
Guest article written by: 
John Started career as a Market Research Intern and currently working at InfoCleanse. His Expertise includes online marketing, research, delivery of insights and build presentations and statistics report about B2B Industry with current trends and assist to the marketing department.