Whether you have a well-established database or a relatively new one, it is essential that you proactively take measures to keep your database well maintained.
Database systems are essential to your business because they communicate information related to your sales transactions, product inventory, customer profiles, and marketing activities. Without a centralised place to store all this information, you have no clue what is occurring within your business.
A well-maintained database will not only help with delivering future success, but it will also help towards certain factors you may want to introduce to take your business to the next level. To maximise your profits, you want to reduce wasted expenditure from sending direct mail to the wrong audience. To do this, we highly recommend that you follow the following steps when it comes to the maintenance of your company database, especially with potential clients and prospects.
Regularly Update Your Database
We cannot tell you how many companies have come to us over the years with the same database from when they first started. This is potentially thousands of opportunities missed for future business by simply not adding contact information to a spreadsheet.
If you have encouraged your audience to fill in forms or have asked them for their information, be sure to check that the information they have provided is correct. If it is not, contact them and update your database so that it is accurate. There are many ways in which you can add direct contact forms on your website that update your database automatically. But it is always important to maintain your database, so it is safe from online hackers and accounts that give incorrect information.
Unfortunately, human errors are only natural. Too often, data is manually uploaded incorrectly to databases. Whether it is incorrect spellings, missing numbers or non-existent addresses, these errors will cause issues. Cleansing will also help remove any details of those who are now deceased. This reduces any distress caused to relatives who find it upsetting to receive mail in the deceased individual’s name.
Segment Into Audience-Specific Categories
Having a database full of your audience’s details is excellent for accurately targeting specific campaigns to the right audience. Your prospects may live in certain regions of the country and the best way of narrowing this down in via your database.
Segmenting your audience into specific demographic groups such as age, gender, location and more, will allow you to send specific campaigns to those who are most likely to engage with them. This is usually because it is something of interest or is relevant to the individual. Segmentation helps reduce wasted expenditure on sending campaign material to those for who it is unsuitable or irrelevant (it also helps when it comes to direct mail personalisation too!).
Boosts Growth & Saves Time
One of the uses of databases by business organisations is to encourage growth. A high-quality database avails you or reporting features like data analysis to predict future trends. Through this, you can capitalise to better position your business to beat the competition and grow. This will in turn effectively save time in the future. Database’s allow businesses to manage all the company’s essential information in one place. It saves you lots of time looking for vital information about your business progress as you can access it all in one place.
Databases are undeniably an important tool in every business organisation, especially if you are sending out marketing techniques regularly (emails, direct mail, leaflets…etc). Deploying the ideal database solution can help manage customer data, business finances, save time, and improve inventory tracking. This is what you stand to gain by integrating a database solution into your business. Here at Alpha Response, we understand the importance of having your database well-maintained and regularly cleansed to make the most out of your campaigns. That is why we offer our expert knowledge to help get your database in the best shape when you come to us. An effective and up-to-date database is the first step to business longevity and success, so make sure you contact us today for a free quote if you are looking to take advantage of key marketing tools by utilising your database.
