What exactly is data hygiene and why is it important to creators
In business, data reigns supreme.
With the high stakes that are dependent on data, it's easy to see that clean and accurate data is essential to a business's success. Unreliable data, also often referred to as dirty data could lead to a failure in attempts to grow.
The good news is that there's a remedy to this problem - data hygiene.
In this piece, we'll explore the storage of data, what data hygiene means and what it's importance. Additionally, you'll learn about the best data hygiene practices to ensure you're keeping your data in good order and your business flourishing.
What kinds of databases are used to store information?
- Contact details
- Demographics information
- Email marketing engagement
- Purchases you made in the past of your goods or services
- Relevant information on their needs to your offerings and services
The larger companies could utilize a more extensive data base for business intelligence and analytics to access even more data points about their business. As an example, a clothing store would track their sales by product SKU, an airline would have details on their flights or a software as service firm would collect data about how their customers use various parts of their application. Sometimes, this data gets extremely detailed and even whole teams at large companies that maintain databases and analyze the information.
Data hygiene is equally important for both scenarios. Since we're looking at the creators of this blog so we'll be focusing on the data that is collected by the CRM.
What is data hygiene?
Data hygiene refers to the ongoing, continuous procedure that ensures the integrity of information. This means you're maintaining data to ensure that it's correct as well as reliable, consistent and stable. The cleaning of data helps prevent businesses, like your own, from struggling with issues created due to dirtier information.
But, what exactly do you mean by dirty data? The term dirty refers to data when it has one or more of the following features:
- Duplicate information
- Incomplete (think the contact fields are not filled in)
- Outdated
- Incorrectly input
- Typos, misspellings as well as multiple spelling variations
The main point is that dirty data is wrong.
The worst thing about filthy data is that it's very easy to introduce errors into the data you store. Whether you input data incorrectly, don't update it regularly or even make an unintentional modification while you're updating your system, errors are possible to introduce anytime during your procedure.
Why is data hygiene vital?
Let's look at the ways that data with dirt could affect your company, and one of the main reasons that keeping good data is so important.
- It's a waste of money and time.
Poor data can cost you. In the U.S. alone, businesses are losing around $3.1 trillion annually due to poor data management.
The issue isn't just that money gets lost, it's also time. An LeadJen study found that sales staff wasted average 27% of the potential selling time by using inaccurate information. The wrong phone number or getting the wrong number isn't an enjoyable experience for anyone.
However, as we have learned, time equals money , so relying on bad data is a guaranteed way to lose out on revenue.
- Marketing emails and other initiatives won't be tailored to the right audience.
When your information isn't current to date or is inaccurate You could send prospective buyers emails or content that doesn't correspond with their current position at in their buyer journey.
The kind of mistakes that are made have the power to tarnish both your customer relationship and brand reputation. The result is an absolute double-whammy.
The worst part is that mistakes like these may cause an increase in email churn rate. Unsubscribes, spam complaints, as well as hard bounces are an option if you don't tailor your content according to the needs of your target audience. All too quickly you'll start seeing your email lists dwindling.
- It's not possible to gain an accurate picture of your sales funnel.
If you don't regularly monitor and maintain your database, it will be difficult to get insight into the quality of the sales funnel. This is why you'll be unable to answer questions like:
- How many qualified leads are there?
- Which leads are you supposed to remove from your sales funnel?
- How much is your churn?
Knowing the accurate answer to questions like these will help you determine where you need to put your marketing and sales efforts. You might even develop OKRs (objectives and key outcomes) using your personal data!
Dirty data defense: data hygiene best practices
It's clear that the downsides of dirty data can be, well even devastating for your business. But, never fear the best practices for data hygiene are available. Whether your business is a day or years old and these practices are applicable at any point within the history of your enterprise. It's time to get going!
- Start with the audit.
A thorough audit can provide you with an overview of your data's overall image. It will help you determine which data is useful, and what's not useful and what information is less beneficial than it is. By conducting an audit it will be possible to address questions such as "Which information points do I need to be collected?" and "Which aspects are in the most need of improvement?".
The audit must determine where problems exist within your data collection and normalization.
- Improve and assess the methods of data collection.
In the course of the audit or following is a great moment to examine at all the sources and methods by which data enters the systems.
Another thing to consider is how you can minimize manual data entry. Automation tools not only reduce mistakes in the data entry process, they allow time to do greater tasks, like designing your next popular TikTok (kidding or do we? ).
- Be aware of the smallest particulars.
When we live our lives it is our goal to not worry about the little things, but it's not the case with data. Small errors in data can quickly lead to huge problems, like creating a marketing strategy based upon inaccurate information. Yikes!
While collecting data, be sure that you're following the following:
- Standardizing mailing addresses
- Verifying email addresses
- The standardization of common abbreviations and number
If you pay attention to the smallest aspects, you'll have the ability to identify larger and important errors. If you discover a handful of either, you could come to the realization that it's time to adopt standardized operating procedures or simple rules for collecting and inputting information.
- Create an ongoing cleaning process for data.
I'm sorry, but your data hygiene journey doesn't end after the initial cleanse. It's an ongoing task that demands the commitment of a person and their determination. Be aware that dirty data can be quickly incorporated into your system - therefore you need to be on the lookout for it like a hawk.
A great way to ensure that dirt-laden data out of your system is to develop continuous maintenance and consistency processes. Here are a few suggestions for implementing them:
- Data entry standardization. Every data point on your system needs to be manually entered in a uniform way (especially in the case of manual entry).
- How to handle data-related errors. Develop rules (even even if they're only for you) which clearly define how to handle errors. As an example, how do fix duplicate or inaccurate entries?
- Avoiding the creation of dirty data in the beginning. This could include adding important fields to your forms to collect data and removing nonessential fields. In addition, you can conduct an annual data audit to ensure that no dirty data is getting back into your company - by using an outdated lead generation form for example.
Data hygiene is the most crucial aspect
Solely having data isn't enough to expand your business, or directly promote sales or marketing.
To ensure that you don't lose revenue, time, and customers, and even jeopardizing the reputation of your company Data must be complete and error-free. Maintaining your data with hygiene practices ensures you have relevant information that you can utilize with confidence!
We believe that data is the key to success. information, and not just for huge multi-person businesses as well as for our most favorite type of business , those operated by one-person, enthusiastic entrepreneurs. We're here to talk with you!