With Christmas fast approaching, businesses are busy putting their meticulously crafted marketing plans into action.
A significant proportion of marketing budgets will be spent in the run-up to the festive season – and rightly so.
And don’t forget about the time and effort that goes into it from the marketers, either. Blood, sweat, and tears will have no doubt been spilled as they push and shove through the crowds, trying to make their messages stand out amongst the seasonal noise.
It’s also a traditionally a busy time in the world of data, but unfortunately, many businesses are still on the naughty list when it comes to giving data the focus it deserves.
So, without further ado, read on to discover why you should be unwrapping the power of your data by creating a data strategy this festive season…
How to unwrap the power of your data
1. Put data at the top of your wish list
Though it was published a few years ago, the 6% solution report written by Royal Mail & Data IQ still carries weight. While it does show that data is moving up the ladder in terms of being recognised for its importance to a business, it also shows that data quality and the thought process around it is an issue.
It’s clear – if your data is clean and accurate, it will work much harder for you and drive up that all important ROI. This sounds obvious because it is, and yet we still find data quality and strategy too far down many Christmas marketing wish lists.
2. Use your data wisely
We’ve recently seen a piece of marketing that put us off a brand, for easily avoidable reasons.
The offender was a direct mail piece being sent to an address that the recipient hadn’t lived at for nearly 18 years and yet they had transacted with them fairly recently! Granted, they’ve had the misfortune of sending it to someone that specialises in this area, but we can’t be alone in thinking it’s poor form. As a result, it has directly influenced our decision making.
Taking steps such as validating names and addresses, deduping, removing poor or offensive data, and identifying inaccurate data such as home moves or deaths can make a massive difference – in fact such steps would have prevented this recent poor experience.
The savings that are on the table for businesses that clean their data are certainly not insignificant. There are plenty of studies that show poor data could carry a cost as high as 6% of a company’s annual revenue, while savings of up to £500,000 could be up for grabs through data cleanse alone.
3. Keep your data neat and tidy
The difference in the cost of dropping or suppressing inaccurate data vs the cost to print, produce, and post inaccurate data is huge.
By cleansing data, we have realised savings well in excess of the £500,000 for our clients time after time, one example seeing us save in excess £1 million per year. This demonstrates just how great data can help make campaigns more effective.
We’re a big fan of this quote we found: “as important as great data is, on its own it will not produce a great response, but poor data will always result in a poor response.”
Data is a fundamental part of all marketing. Edit has specialised in data cleansing for many years – it’s something we’re passionate about and we’re very good at it, if we do say so ourselves
We have a great team on hand to work with you and guide you through the process. And, for the more accomplished marketer, Pura, our online self-service data cleanse suite is available.
Join the marketing nice list this Christmas
So why not add Edit to your Christmas wish list and let us help you with your data.
As an expert data agency we have years of experience helping brands unlock their marketing potential with the power of data. How do we do it? By stripping everything back and using data to drive our approach, so we can create powerful campaigns that enable you to build stronger relationships with your customers.
If you’d like to find out more about how we can help you get the most out of our data this festive season and beyond, contact us today to learn more about creating a data strategy.
