How to Clean Your Marketing Data

Cleaning the data in the marketing database or Salesforce.com/CRM system is probably one of the most boring projects that marketers undertake, but it can have a huge impact on a company’s bottom line.  We all know we need to do it, but most marketers procrastinate data cleaning because it seems like such a huge hassle.

Here’s a 10-minute introduction to my data cleaning process.  Using Microsoft Excel to semi-automate the process, here’s how I clean and code my marketing data for more effective marketing campaigns, better segmentation and successful lead nurturing.

Why should you bother cleaning your marketing data?  Is your Salesforce.com data quality really important?   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 sales are closed.  Incremental improvements add up fast.

Even if you use a professional list cleaning service for data appending, updating or national change of address corrections, investing the time to do your own data cleaning and coding updates dramatically increases the value of CRM systems like Salesforce.com or NetSuite and marketing automation systems like Eloqua, Vtrenz, or Pardot.

With this quick, easy cleaning process you can enjoy the benefits of good data quality without long hours of tedious record-by-record data cleaning.  If you’d like more detailed instructions, check out Double the Value of Your Marketing Data, a new ebook from ChickBiz Publishing.

And this is the perfect project for the end of the year.   Thanksgiving week and the week after Christmas are ideal times to clean your data if you have the bad luck to be stuck in the office and not taking vacation.  Everything is quiet; there are few interruptions.  It’s the perfect time to get your data ready for the new year.  Good luck!