Your Cleaning Service Can’t Help with This Dirty Marketing Job

OK, this is the topic no one wants to discuss ꟷ the health and cleanliness of their marketing database. Nothing defines busy work more than the upkeep of the thousands of prospects that live in your marketing automation or CRM system. Not even the intern wants to touch it.

BUT, the success of your revenue generation program depends on the accuracy and robustness of your database. And the push for personalized content and account-based marketing are driving the need for even more advanced database strategies.

A recent study confirmed the dirty little secret that most of us already know (but refuse to acknowledge): database strategies can no longer be pushed to the backburner. More than 70% of respondents said their biggest database issue was the contact information is either old or outdated.¹ This is a monumental issue when you consider that two-thirds of the respondents reported their databases required painstaking manual cleanup and contact validation.

Almost half of the marketers said their databases needed significant improvement and plan to implement a formal data acquisition strategy within the next 12 months or beyond.

So, what prevents marketers from installing a formal data acquisition strategy?

• No alignment between departments to break down data silos (42%)
• Lack the resources to implement a formal data acquisition strategy (30%)
• Lack of employee expertise/experience to implement a formal data acquisition strategy (30%)

Sound familiar?

When it comes to the types of contact information collected in the database, marketers wanted the following:

• Name (91%);
• Email address (84%);
• Company name (84%);
• Title (70%)
• Phone number (56%)

No surprises there. But, marketers also revealed a wish list of data that is not presently being collected. These included:

• Timeframe for buying decision (54%)
• Specific commentary on challenges/pain points (52%)
• Buying intent insights (52%)

When asked about the most effective tactics used for acquiring prospect data, registration forms on websites and content download forms on landing pages topped the responses.

TW’s Take

Let’s face it, few marketers want to devote their time to marketing database cleanup and administration. But, database quality and accuracy are critical components of the revenue generation process. These issues become even more important as B2B and life science companies embrace account-based marketing and collect active buyer identification data. New strategies will be required to acquire the data that signals prospective buyer engagement and insight. The good news: automated tools are now available, such as Validity.com’s BriteVerify solution, that help replace the mind-numbing task of data cleansing and validation. So, it’s time to be kind to your marketing database and give it a good scrubbing.

For a copy of the study, email rwhitmyre@tizinc.com.

¹ Database Strategies & Contact Acquisition Survey Report, Demand Gen, December 2021.