It can be easy to ignore a problem when it doesn’t manifest itself right away. Outdated sales data is this type of problem. Like termites slowly eating away at the foundation of a home, you might not notice it immediately, but it will eventually bring the walls down if you don’t take action.
Outdated Sales Contact Data Is Everywhere
According to Salesforce, about 70% of the data in your CRM goes bad every year. That means if you don’t take any steps to clean up or improve your data over a 12-month timeframe, over two-thirds of your data becomes worthless.
Many people are surprised to learn that outdated sales contact data is this significant of a problem and then wonder why their sales and marketing efforts aren’t as fruitful as they should be. It’s impossible to fix a problem you don’t know exists. Outdated contact records can have a severe effect on your B2B prospecting:
- Even if only 30% of your records are outdated, that’s nearly one-third of your sales data that is unusable. This could impact 30% of your revenue or more, depending on the type of business you do.
- It distorts the metrics of your marketing campaigns. Suppose you send content like blog posts or email newsletters to invalid records. In that case, you’ll be at a disadvantage before the campaign even begins, which means you might not get an accurate understanding of how well your marketing is working.
- It wastes your sales reps’ time. Even if they only call or email a bad prospect once, that time is completely wasted. If they follow up with a bad email address or phone number more than once, the effect is compounded.
- Sending emails to outdated sales records can get you in trouble with your hosting company or email service provider. Most email companies have a bounce threshold that they require customers to stay under – if you don’t, they’ll suspend or permanently delete your account. You might also get your domain flagged as a spammer, which means your messages get pushed instantly to the spam folder.
Avoiding the Outdated Sales Contact Data Problem
Understanding the high cost of outdated records isn’t enough – you’ve got to take action. Make it a priority to keep your data clean and in good condition. Schedule time to audit and test your data to ensure it’s accurate. Make sure that your team knows about your company’s standards for data entry and upkeep. If they aren’t entering data accurately to begin with, maintaining updated records is an uphill climb.
The easiest way to keep your sales data accurate is to get in touch with a third-party data cleaning provider you can trust. To learn more about YesData’s cleaning service and how it can help improve your sales and marketing effectiveness, contact us today.
