Building Databases: Step 1 (Start with the Basics)
Tuesday, 10 January 2012 11:20
We have previously discussed how building a database doesn’t have to be a painful or daunting process. There are a few simple, cost-effective steps to get you to a point where personalized marketing can be a reality. Before you get those steps, however, you have to start at the beginning. Here are the steps we suggest following when teaming up with us to build yourself a quality database:
Step one. Provide Darwill with your existing list and let us see what’s in it. Database-building starts with analyzing just what you do — and do not — have in there.
Step two. Darwill will use your data to build a simple spreadsheet, then run it through the de-dupe and address correction process.
Step three. Darwill will ask you questions in order to standardize the different fields according to your marketing goals. For example, you might want to change all of the fields to uppercase. You might want to abbreviate and standardize terms such as “Street” and “Avenue” and turn them into “St.” and “Ave.” Or, if you have two individuals living in the same household, you might want to make decisions about whether you want to mail to both or whether you want to select only one individual per location.
Step four. Decide which data will actually be used in the marketing efforts and which will be used to generate reports only. For example, you might not intend to use a contact’s vertical market as part of your targeting, but you might want to see a report on how various vertical markets fared.
The level of detail will determine which tool we use to build the final database. We have certain internal database tools that we can use or, for more complex projects, even do a custom build for you!
Stay tuned for more details to come this week around making a list buy!
