If you’re like most people, you’ve already slipped up on one or two of your New Year’s resolutions. But just because you tripped up doesn’t mean you need to give it all up – especially if that resolution deals with your development strategy and database management.
Many businesses resolve at the beginning of the year to “clean house” and “start fresh,” and the development database is often one of the first places to start. There’s good reason to focus on cleaning out and honing in your database management – it may be the most influential part of your development strategy.
Database marketing works.
According to a Forbes study, businesses with “data-driven marketing” are up to six times more likely to “be profitable year-over-year.” If that’s not a ringing endorsement, we don’t know what is. Database marketing is designed to target who your ideal customers are and get them exactly what they want to see and hear.
Customization and personalization in marketing and service are now essential. Quality data provides your team with the details on what customers want so that you can translate that to your outreach. Data helps you identify your ideal customer, predict their behavior, and gain immediate feedback on your tactics’ success. Database marketing saves you time and money and sets your business up for life-long success.
But your database marketing is only as good as your database itself.
How can you be sure your data and database are set up to yield the effects of database marketing?
- Start with your data. You need the right information to make the right decisions. Scrutinize your data sources, whether they be outside lists or information gained from your own web forms or surveys. Implement data scrubbing tech to check for inaccurate contact information or out-of-date job titles. Once you’re sure, you’ve got a clean start, set up regular intervals to check on data and give it a deep clean so it stays relevant.
- Next, get organized. Quantity and quality are essential for data, but even more so is organizing information so you can understand and use it. Establish uniform naming conventions, determine who collects and inputs data, and make these processes clear to your team. The more uniformly you enter data, the easier it’ll be for you to leverage it in the future.
- Then, segment your data. Once your data is organized enough to understand, you can begin grouping it for marketing and development. Decide how to best group by categories like territory, buying potential, or other important segments of your business. Once you determine these groupings, you can begin crafting, disseminating, and analyzing targeted marketing campaigns to hone in on your development marketing success.
- Finally, train your team. Help your whole team understand the importance of data, emphasizing the need to gather it and bring it to your database. Determine your essential data needs (i.e., job title, contact email, company size and industry) and ensure your reps gain this helpful information from each prospect.
Get the help you need to set your database up right.
If you’re struggling with outdated, incomplete, or otherwise unusable data, you can jump-start your resolution for quality database management by bringing in a partner like NuGrowth Solutions.
Our expert database management team is poised to plug-in wherever you need us, tackling areas like implementation and training, data auditing and cleansing, and continued management and improvement.
Find out how we can help you meet your database development goals and unlock the information you need to bring your business to new heights. Get in touch at 614.304.3922 or fill out a simple contact form here.
Sarah Deak is a veteran copywriter and content strategist with NuGrowth Solutions. She likes to look for the unexpected angle and uses her background in education, business development, and marketing to create interesting and informative pieces to equip readers with actionable data