Lift Revenues 70% By Cleaning Up Dirty B2B Data

Yep. It's true. Based on data quality improvements alone, an organization that pays constant vigilance to the accuracy and quality of their database information can gain a huge upside. And, in this market, you need every advantage you can get...right?

Sirius Decisions released the results of a recent study where they "found that from 10 to 25 percent of b-to-b marketing database contacts contain critical errors—ranging from incorrect demographic data to lack of information concerning current status in the buying cycle."

The problem seems to be that dirty data is easier to sweep under the rug than to clean up. It's not sexy, it's not social and—most of all—it's not cheap. But it's one of those tasks companies need to roll up their sleeves and address. Especially if one of this year's goals is to get conversational and increase relevance to aid in shortening sales cycles.

Read this again, just to stay focused:

"...a strong organization will realize nearly 70 percent more revenue than an average organization purely based on data quality."

And, just in case you want to start pointing fingers and slough this task off to another department, consider that impacts were found across the buying journey. This means that the organization as a whole needs to take this on, but at a minimum, it makes the case for better alignment and feedback loops between marketing and sales.

An example of the breadth of impact across the sales cycle from data quality improvements includes:

• 25% increase in conversions from inquiry to qualified marketing leads
• 12.5% increase in transitioning qualified leads to sales opportunity when you unify data from disparate sources
• 5% reduction in selling time

But reaping these rewards doesn't come easily. It's not a once-and-done kind of thing.

B2B databases double in size every year or so, increasing the probability of data errors. People change jobs and roles. Their buying behavior speeds up and slows down due to constant shifts in priorities based on trigger events. Conversations that aren't recorded can impact your credibility based on foot-in-mouth syndrome if you're not up to date on previous dialogue and interactions.

Data is about the most important thing you've got to work with in a digital business environment. Being out of tune with your prospects and customers hinders your ability to create the consistency and competence that buyers require from their vendors.

Buyers are taking control of their buying process. The closer you can get to them, the more accurately you know their situations, the higher the opportunity for you to be consistently relevant and valuable.

Better quality data means you'll have better:

• persona and profile information
• segmentation capabilities for personalization
• higher engagement due to content relevance (based on insights)
• more accurate sales forecasts
• better delivery for email campaigns
• a more accurate gauge of interest levels
• higher credibility
• valuable conversations
• and so much more...

It may not be glamorous, but data cleanliness is critical to creating sustainable growth. If knowledge is power, you're only as powerful as the quality of that knowledge. When your data is dirty, chances are that it'll be hard to build the credibility you need to generate relationships that produce mutual value.

Why in the world would you leave that to chance?

Comments

[Steven Woods]

Ardath, this is a great point, and one of those things that many marketers have only recently started thinking about more seriously. As marketing shifts from being oriented around outbound efforts where creative and copy are key, and data is less important, to inbound efforts where automation, lead scoring, lead routing and personalizaion are much more critical, the skill needed to do this shift.

We're now in a marketing world where data quality and data management must be a key part of our day to day marketing operations. I wrote a bit about developing a Contact Washing Machine here -
http://digitalbodylanguage.blogspot.com/2008/12/contact-washing-machine.html - thanks for re-emphasizing such a critical topic.

[Ardath Albee]

Steven,

Thanks for jumping in. Your Contact Washing Machine is a good start.

As we gather more and more data, the challenge is deciding what can help with attraction strategies and what is just information. Regardless, data needs to be kept current and up-to-date to be useful.

The more I think about it, the more I think we need to determine what we can use, how we'll use it and then create processes around managing it for highest impact use. Lead scoring is a starting to evolve marketing in that direction. [Needless to say, it's next to impossible to expand on this without technology.]

Different data is useful at different times in the buying journey.

This is something I'll be doing a lot of work on this year.

Ardath

[Neil Sequeira - ReadyContacts.com]

Great post Ardath. We have been writing about the importance of data cleansing and having richer B2B lead data quite a bit but the fact that it can help drive revenues up to 70% more is stunning. It just re-iterates how important good data is.

[Ardath Albee]

Hi Neil,

Thanks for your comment. It puts a whole different spin on it when you think about the difference clean data makes to business outcomes, doesn't it. I know, I was stunned at the extent, too!

Ardath

[Vaibhav Domkundwar - ReadyContacts.com]

Adarth, this is right on. Its been something we have been pushing our customers to pay attention to, here at ReadyContacts, for well over a year now. We believe B2B marketing data/database management will be a crucial component for every B2B marketers as they try new marketing channels, to ensure that the data they are working off of is good to start with and is maintained as well. We are seeing a good buy in on this and expect this to be a big trend going forward. Every SFDC customer who adopted web-based CRM over the last 1-5 years is at a point where they are realizing how out-of-control their data is and how critical it is for them to get it in order. This Sirius study should be an useful eye opener for a lot of B2B marketers and most importantly for VP and C-level executives who are hesitant to approve budgets for cleansing and data enrichment.

[Ardath Albee]

Hi Vaibhav,

Thanks for commenting. Something you said inspired my post today about using B2B data effectively. After all, clean is only clean. You have to use it to get that lift in revenues.

Thanks for making me think!
Ardath

[Wayne A]

I learned a lot from reading this blog post. In the coming years the internet will be more video based as now it is mostly text based

[john]

Hey Albee, Great Stuff. I really appreciate this post. Keep up the good work.

[Carpet Cleaning Los Angeles]

Great post. Thanks for sharing this.

Looking forward to read more from you.