by Jack Bailey-Grundy 
One of the most common phrases I hear when speaking with customers is “We just need to sort our data quality”. It’s a commonly repeated refrain, often with little activity beyond that. It seems that people don’t know where to start. A data cleanse is discussed in revered terms. The need for big internal projects, encompassing people from every team and stopping people from working on the core business. Ultimately, no one wants to own the project, and it slips down the to-do list. A project for that mythical time when “business is quieter”.
But, undoubtedly, the arrival of GPT functionality and the central concept of Data Cloud will shine a light on data. Whether you plan to be an early GPT adopter or expect to give it a wide berth, upcoming demos, product launches and releases will showcase the potential, and consequently highlight the importance of clean data. These will undeniably fill you with new ideas, tips and tricks to try with your own systems. This applies even if you aren’t planning on adopting any new tools. Even if you avoid all the hype, have perfected your list of priorities and are happy with your strategies, your customers might be expecting something different.
In a recent presentation, Salesforce shared that 85% of customers expect consistent interactions across departments and 88% of customers say that the experience a company provides is as important as the product. Meanwhile, 71% of marketers say meeting customer expectations is more difficult today than a year ago*. So concepts like personalisation and frequency of communication are more important than ever in ensuring that marketers can deliver those marketing moments that matter. That means, at the very least, that you need to be managing and maintaining your customer data – keeping it up-to-date, free of duplicates, and that the information isn’t siloed.
Therefore, that data cleanse project might just need to gain a little bit of momentum.
But, before you start running out to build that project team, let’s consider where your data is coming from. Undoubtedly, some data is entered and maintained directly in CRMs by day-to-day users of the system. But data also comes in from our customers – downloading content or registering for events. Each day there are multiple opportunities for people to keep their data up-to-date for you, and several small changes can really add up.
Zoe Fisher Principal Marketing Automation Consultant
Looking for help with Account Engagement?
Zoe Fisher
Principal Marketing Automation Consultant
Looking for help with Account Engagement?
So how can you use Account Engagement to automate some of that cleanup? Here are three ideas that come to mind:
Audit Your Forms
Since your forms are where the magic happens, it makes sense to review the information you are asking for. Does it help you enhance the picture you are gathering of your prospects or customers? Are you asking the right questions? Do you need a full address if you are never going to visit their office or send them a letter?
If, say, you only have 5 fields at your disposal, choose the information requested wisely. Or better still, start adding some progressive profiling to your forms. This allows you to hide previously captured information and display a new field each time a customer returns to your site. The more they engage, the more they’ll be willing to share additional information. This allows you to gain a rich profile of information without an onerous form fill. Making use of dependent picklists (such as asking for sub-industry if a particular industry field is completed) is another great way to augment your data.
Other field options, such as allowing data from cookie-d prospects to pre-populate forms can allow individuals to validate or update the information you hold about them. Just avoid allowing too much to be overwritten. Overwriting fields such as email addresses can lead to incorrect cookie association which in itself will cause data integrity issues.
Check Your Systems Are Syncing
Once you’ve put the work into getting your forms in shape, make sure the data is syncing as it should. If you want forms to capture up-to-date information and overwrite old values in your database, make sure you review each field’s sync behaviour. If ensuring the information in Salesforce is your source of truth, check your settings correctly reflect this on every field. Make sure to check your sync queue for errors. A great way to ensure the data entered on forms is accurate is by setting up pre-defined values for use in dropdowns or radio buttons. But Salesforce will not sync with the record if matching values don’t exist in Salesforce. This will cause an immediate difference in your data. Take a look at our blog to make sure you aren’t encountering any of our 5 common errors.
Be Where Your Customers Are
Finally, use your data wisely. If you are communicating via email, but getting low engagement, consider your approach. Is this how your customers want you to interact? Is there a more appropriate alternative – Live Chat, WhatsApp or ticket support for example? Alternatively, consider if you are sending emails at the wrong times. Einstein Send Time Optimization helps ensure your customers receive emails at the optimum time for them. Make sure you are using all the features at your disposal to get the most out of your hard-earned data.
Equally, if you aren’t engaging parts of your database, do you know why not? Are they missing important information which would pull them into campaigns? In this case, a nurture campaign could be an option. This would allow you to start to build up insight into these far-flung reaches of your databases.
Alternatively, an often underutilised pool of data in marketing databases is customer and lapsed customer segments. Using Marketing Automation for lead generation is powerful, but don’t forget the opportunities using engagement programmes to onboard and retain your customers provides too. Your account teams can’t speak with every customer at the moment that matters, but a well-timed email could be the difference between renewal and churn.
And ultimately, if they just aren’t the right profile for your customer base, don’t be afraid to move them to the recycle bin and make space for new prospects – it will only improve your engagement rates.
In Summary
Finally, if you are undertaking a wider data cleanup project – and ultimately, the techniques above will only give you a starting point – consider your messaging. There are even more reasons to drive a data-driven message in Chris’s latest blog. Whatever the angle, try to define it less in terms of marketing engagement, but sell the value to your decision-makers using their language. Think about potential improvements in terms of ROI, opportunity conversion rates, time to sale etc. Providing clear costs and benefits to the business in terms of pounds and pence will take you one step closer to securing your dream team.