Bad data costs companies time and money because it prevents marketing campaigns from being successful. If you don’t have accurate data, your marketing communications won’t reach their targets, which means time, energy, and resources wasted developing ineffective campaigns. Here are three basic ways poor data quality negatively affects your organization:
1. It Costs Money
The most obvious consequence of bad data is the waste of money. Marketing assets are expensive to produce, and when your materials don’t even reach their intended audience, that means money out the window. According to 2018 IBM research, bad data costs businesses an astounding $3.1 TRILLION a year. Bad targeting also results in incorrect demographic understanding of your clients.
2. It Wastes Precious Time
Poor data quality also results in wasted time. Your company didn’t just put money into those marketing resources, but also spent a lot of time preparing them—time that could have been used more productively elsewhere. Time is money, after all. Marketing teams waste hours creating ineffective campaigns as a result of poor data, and then pass this information on to the sales team, who wastes time chasing after leads that will never close. With better data quality, all of this time could be spent on activities that actually drive revenue.
3. It Affects Your Employees
When they talk about data, most companies are concerned with reaching customers. Think about this, each year, up to 30% of email addresses decay due to lack of email hygiene. And, according to Forrester, nearly one-third of analysts spend more than 40% of their time validating data before passing it along for strategic business initiatives. And, bad data also affects your B2B sales team, which can lead to inefficiency, lowered production (especially crucial when you’re commission-based), low morale, and frustration.
Conclusion
Companies can no longer ignore data quality problems. While you waste time and money on marketing campaigns and sales calls, other brands reach their audiences and close deals. It’s time to get to work on cleaning up your data. Implement better hygiene practices and append your database for more accurate targeting. Your customers and your staff will thank you for it.
