The Bottom Line Impact of Good Marketing Data

Making the most of your sales leads is crucial for maximum profitability.  Too often, companies spend thousands—even millions—of dollars for lead generation programs with barely a thought for how they will capture, process, and follow up the leads once they are acquired or how they will nurture them over time.

Let’s be honest: improving data quality is not a sexy or high-profile marketing project.  It can be pretty boring and is usually ignored. But getting your marketing data into a clean, optimized state can have more impact on your company’s bottom line than almost any single lead generation program.

Studies show that most marketing leads are wasted. Aberdeen Group reports that only 20% of marketing leads are ever followed up by sales reps but about 80% of ignored prospects will go on to purchase from someone within 24 months.   If you have clean, well-organized, accurately coded data, marketing can nurture those ignored leads until they are ready to buy.

Good data has a measurable bottom line impact.  A recent report from SiriusDecisions estimates that companies can generate nearly 70% more revenue simply by improving the quality of their marketing data.   There’s a quantifiable waterfall effect: more leads get qualified and faster, sales follow-up rates increase, more deals close. Incremental improvements can add up fast—especially when they are compounded.

Bad data keeps costing you money. According to Johnathan Block, SiriusDecisions senior director of research, “The longer incorrect records remain in a database, the greater the financial impact. This point is illustrated by the 1-10-100 rule: It takes $1 to verify a record as it’s entered, $10 to cleanse and de-dupe it and $100 if nothing is done, as the ramifications of the mistakes are felt over and over again.”

The bottom line: good data equals good business.

Excerpted from “Double the Value of Your Marketing Data,” a new ebook from ChickBiz Publishing written by Katherine Chalmers .