“You Shall Not Pass” on Bad Data
Monday, 21 November 2011 13:37
In a highly dramatic scene in the film epic, “The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring,” actor Ian McKellen imbues wizard Gandalf the Grey with total authority. As the Fellowship escapes along a stone bridge, running away from a giant beast, Gandalf commands, “You shall not pass!”
In today’s age of high-volume target marketing, marketers need their own kind of magic to slay the demons of inaccurate data. Businesses are looking for the something that may, at first, seem at odds: They want the most customized piece as possible, but with the most efficient process possible. Maximum customization with minimum handling. The answer is, however, counterintuitive: Put a digital Gandalf in charge.
According to Jessica Formosa, writing in Target Marketing, the “Address Quality Gatekeeper” is a key role to reducing costs and increasing quality. Not long ago, databases were not connected or cross-referenced, so independent departments or work groups would maintain their own lists, and update them according to their own needs. And, while new integrated CRM systems have rectified some of the problems, there’s still a long way to go to normalize the information across the various sources.
Formosa notes there are still some procedural issues with companies and their data quality. Companies still cling to old methods – like having customers maintain their own records -- to manage data quality, with varying success. Relying on call centers and returned mail is another approach with it’s own set of limitations and expenses.
Formosa describes the point-of-entry solution as a “gatekeeper” to ensure no address enters the database unless it has been validated.
“There is no sense in adding records to your system that are going to cost money to fix later on,” she writes. “A gatekeeper will prevent most errors from getting into your system in the first place.”
Specifically, address-quality gatekeepers should do three major things: standardize address formats to USPS specifications, offer address correction and verification, and validate delivery points.
And, just like there were to more “Lord of the Rings” installments after “Fellowship,” a quality gatekeeper is just one part of a data quality strategy. It’s the first step, however, in your processes to keep data current and useful. In addition to keeping up with the 40 million households that move each year and zip code changes, it doesn’t hurt to have a set of human eyes look over the list, too. This is especially true “Hot 100” or key accounts where the buyer contact may not be the same as the primary contact in the database. This real-world check is the kind of attention to detail that can turn a marketing campaign into a blockbuster.
