Food for thought:

• It takes $1 to verify a record when it is in your database
• It takes $10 to cleanse that record for accuracy, and;
• It can cost you up to $100 if you neglect to take the necessary steps to ensure that your contact information is accurate.

This is the cost of bad data. Organizations that don’t emphasize the importance of ensuring their CRM database is kept clean and all information on each contact is accurate are simply losing revenue. They are losing because they are working within the parameters of an ineffective marketing strategy while placing little value on the importance of prospect retention.

If you’re losing as a result of bad data, perhaps the reasons can be found here:

• Form inconsistency. Inefficiency is more often caused by capturing the same pieces of data several times and using redundant methods of doing so.
• Inconsistent information from one database to another. Having one set of field values set in the CRM means maintaining conflicting information.
• Uploading lists inconsistently. Ensuring that all available contact information is properly entered into the database means better data to work with in future campaigns. Companies that don’t invest in the time it takes to ensure data is accurate are wasting the money they’ve invested on the lists they’ve acquired.

Yet, there is a silver lining to the story.

One of the most effective ways to battle against maintaining bad data is by developing a “Contact Washing Machine”.

A Contact Washing Machine is a uniquely designed program that automates the entire process of capturing contact information. With a Contact Washing Machine, marketing is able to gain more accuracy on contact profiles by inputting all the missing data pieces. Everything from incoming lists, to form submissions, account syncs and various prospect actions are automatically scrubbed, normalized, standardized and cleansed.

With a Contact Washing Machine, sales and marketing become capable of isolating the most important data points for each contact in order to more effectively segment leads with more accurate reports. Furthermore, data that is captured is accompanied by visually produced statistics via reports and dashboards that provide for better insight into all the different activities that are happening in the sales funnel. With access to information like number of inquiries, inquiries by segment, and inquiries by normalized title, information on each contact is compartmentalized while data becomes more organized.

With a Contact Washing Machine, a CRM enables marketing and sales to execute on more targeted campaigns using more accurate messages in an effort to reach the ultimate goal of translating more prospects into revenue.

Have you thought about building a Contact Washing Machine to ensure clean data?