Preparation Precedes Performance
The saying “today’s preparation determines tomorrow’s achievement” certainly applies to the creation and maintenance of marketing lists.
After all, if you rush into a marketing campaign without cleaning up your list and collecting critical data first, you end up wasting time chasing duplicate leads, trying to reach contacts that are no longer in the company or looking for incomplete information in the midst of a campaign.
It’s like putting your revenues through the paper shredder.
To achieve a successful marketing campaign, you need to purge duplicate leads and ensure your list has complete, accurate data so you can reach your targets easily and with the right message.
The 4 Steps to Success
Take these four steps and get all the information you need at your fingertips for successful marketing campaigns.
- Match and Merge
You may have many sources of data when executing a marketing campaign. But if you run your campaigns on each list separately, instead of complementing each other, your efforts may overlap and conflict.
You don’t want three lists, one from each source. You want a comprehensive resource that includes everything you know about a prospect.
So, take advantage of advanced software that enables you to match and merge duplicate records into a consolidated record. Sophisticated software acts as a detective, determining, for example, that Bill Brown, William Brown and Mr. Brown, who all reside at the same street address, may be the same person masquerading under different names.
The software can take multiple incomplete records and combine the information, producing a much more robust database than any one of your individual lists.
Alternatively, you can outsource your list management.
- Destroy Duplicate Data
Of course, you don’t need three separate records for—Bill, William and Mr. Brown.
Therefore, an essential task is de-duping the data. This process enables you to avoid wasting time and money reaching out to the same person two or three times with each tactic: direct mail (expensive), telemarketing (time-consuming), email (annoying), etc. You can then plan campaigns that build on each other, enhancing interest in your products and services.
- Append Data
Sometimes you just don’t have all the information you need in-house for stellar campaigns.
If not, you’ll want to append data from outside sources. Start by determining exactly what fields of information you want to add. For example, you might want to append data on company revenues and industries.
Before appending data, you want to make sure that your current data is in perfect shape. Run it through a hygiene process that, for example, ensures state abbreviations and zip codes are correctly formatted.
- Segment and Prioritize Your Data to Maximize Results
Once you have additional demographic and contact data, you’ll be able to reach contacts by telephone, email, or mail; segment your list; have the right message go to the right person, and prioritize who to contact based on your profile of the ideal client.