3 ways data hoarding is costing you
Are you a data hoarder? You might be shaking your head, but have you ever kept a contact or so because someday you just might need their information? Or maybe you keep the data because that prospect may suddenly be interested. Maybe you’re simply delete phobic. Did you know that keeping those records in your CRM could be costing you money, hurting your brand, or flat out annoying people?
Think about it. Your CRM data drives so much of your business – from your pipeline numbers, to your marketing campaigns, to who your sales team is calling.
Here are 3 costs where data hoarding might hurt you:
- Marketing costs – The marketing cost of data hoarding isn’t just in the number of marketing pieces you send, it’s also about ROI. Your return on investment for a marketing campaign will be skewed if your CRM database is bogged down by hoarded contacts. The current average time an individual stays in a job is about 4.4 years. So chances are high that the contact to whom you are marketing is no longer the right contact. This could be costing you big marketing dollars, and killing your return on investment statistics. By not cleaning up your database you may have just doubled your cost to acquire new prospects.
- Pipeline value – Many sales teams are measured on their pipeline and close rate. What happens if your database is full of companies that never have a chance of closing? If they haven’t been kept up-to-date, they likely aren’t a viable opportunity. In turn, when you go to calculate your pipeline value and close rate, the hoarded data is making your sales team look less effective than they really are.
- Brand value – Your brand is so much more than your business name and logo. It’s how your business is perceived. Data hoarding could be undermining your brand value. How? At the most basic level, you make your company look bad by reaching out to contacts that can’t actually benefit from your services. By marketing or selling to the wrong contact, or worse, a contact that is no longer at the prospect company you’re degrading your brand.
So, how do you keep yourself from piles and piles of hoarded data? Well, doesn’t that sound like a great topic for our next blog! A sneak peek tidbit, have data guidelines – define what is relevant and what is stale. Our rule of thumb is data with no activity for 2 years or more should go. You will be doing your company good by cleaning them up or purging them completely.
See our earlier blog titled “5 Easy steps to keeping your CRM clean” for ideas on avoiding data hoarding altogether. You can also drop us a line at support@3LeafCRM.com or call us at 410-472-5058 to discuss your database cleanliness!
