In this modern age of the almighty dollar, your data (as well as everyone else’s) is worth more than gold. Facebook knows it, Google knows it, any website that asks you to accept cookies knows it. It’s one of the most important parts of marketing. But why, specifically, is good data so crucial? Shouldn’t any data, good or bad, be useful? Possibly, in an ideal world, but to err is human, so most data is often cluttered up with nonsense.
Many databases, as well as traditional marketing graphs, contain outdated or irrelevant information leading to issues such as email bounce, spam traps, or not even reaching the intended audience at all. To put it simply, you can remember your daughter wanted a Dora themed birthday party when she was four, but it’s not going to be as well received for her sweet sixteen. Bad data is a money pit which, according to current research by IBM, costs businesses over 3 trillion dollars in the US alone.
This irrelevant (or bad) data wastes time, money, resources, and leaves prospective customers questioning whether you’re the right company for them. Not to mention, it can lead to burnout within a sales team. Less interest leads to less sales, which in turn leads to less morale/efficiency/etc.
It’s like the differences between 1st and 3rd party data. 1st party data is data collected by companies from their own sources, both online and offline. 3rd party data is data that is collected by an autonomous company that does not interact directly with the customers. Imagine your neighbor tells you a story about how their friend met Kevin Bacon, then you meet that friend and find out that no, they were just cooking bacon. That’s the difference between 1st and 3rd party data.
So what does good data do? Good data helps marketers to get their foot in the door, so to speak. It allows marketers to target the best audiences for their products. In order to make a sale, marketers must make customers aware of their product’s existence for it to even be in the running against competing products. If customers are unaware of your brand, they will not be able to view it as a genuine prospect and consider investing in it and/or purchasing it.
Having recent and accurate data helps marketers to determine which level of the sales funnel a customer is in. Whether it is awareness, interest, consideration, or decision. Good data is key in figuring out which leads are even worth the time and money. Targeting those who still have yet to make a decision is the most efficient use of your budget and time. It is much less likely that a customer who is in the action phase will consider any new options.
What are some things you can do to avoid bad data?
– Enhancing your data is important! Adding in missing data points such as job titles or number of employees can help pinpoint and make your B2B database more accurate.
– Look beyond the data you’ve already collected! More often than not, user’s emails will connect with social media usernames or accounts.
– Making sure that your email lists are routinely cleaned?Email is still one of the most effective forms of outreach as many people use one email to link many accounts such as streaming and gaming services, so making sure that there is no irrelevant data is key.
Stirista can be a solution to many of these issues that a business can encounter. All of the best practices revolve around data. Defining your target audience? Requires data. Establishing brand identity? Can’t do that without data. Stirista has multi-faceted programs to help make all of this a lot easier and simpler for everyone, making sure the data you receive reduces time and effort spent.
Our recently developed OMNA Identity graph addresses one of the biggest issues in marketing: unifying data while keeping it current and relevant. By now, most marketers have realized that cookies have become outdated. They split consumers into categories based on their online browsing patterns or mobile ad IDs, which aren’t always indicative of their interests. Essentially, they create incomplete and ultimately inaccurate portrayals of consumer’s intentions online.
The OMNA graph avoids all that by grouping together both first and second party data, updating itself every second. By synthesizing billions of online interactions using over 500 identifiers for each profile, OMNA is able to keep track of user data in the most privacy compliant ways possible. OMNA allows brands to onboard their own first party data on customers, visitors and consumers and matches them with current data in under 24 hours.
With the rise of interconnected online ecosystems at home, marketers would benefit greatly from the help of OMNA. It can inform the ads delivered to a selected household with a connected cable, broadcast, or streaming service, reducing acquisition time by almost immeasurable amounts. Reducing overall costs and saving money spent from your budget by making sure that the data you receive is streamlined, concise, accurate and (simply put) good.
