With the evolution of such marketing tools like eBook sign-ups and CTAs, which became the info-grabbing norms, it became critical for businesses to understand the person behind every email address in order to influence and shape the individual consumer journey. The aforementioned tools might make it easier, but even CRM can’t function properly with dubious data. When it comes to reaching your target audience and understanding whom you are selling to, even a spreadsheet with thousands of vague names and email addresses doesn’t have much substance. 

Such contacts are useless if there is no follow-up, continuous communication, and an opportunity to show people the value of your brand’s products and services. The good thing is that there are actions that you can take to make the process of streamlining your contact data as painless and proficient as possible. Start by asking yourself a couple of questions:

Is your data unorganized? Is your data incomplete? What is the quality of your contact list? Is your data segmented or divided into groups? If you’re not sure about the answers, here are a couple of tips on how to properly streamline your contact data:

Divide and Develop Your Existing Data

 Don’t diminish the value of your existing contact databases, no matter how undeveloped or sparse its data fields might be. Whatever you’ve got – work with it. Compartmentalize every contact by demographics like age, occupation, location, gender, and what your customers seek from your company. Once you do this, buyer personas can be quickly and thoroughly built, and you can make your next step to reach them.

 Even if you have databases that are in short supply of contact information, you still have to divide and conquer. Whether you have one or multiple systems, go through each one, and compile as much relevant information per contact as you can. Contact’s past purchases can also be useful, so make sure to go through those archives as well.

Scrub, Update, Repeat

 Once your databases are exhumed, the next step is to determine the validity and connectivity of each subscriber, and that’s where scrubbing campaigns come in. These campaigns can help your business understand the nature of your consumers and to get a pulse on their email engagement. They help you see which addresses are active and are likely to continue to engage with email updates and company services, and which addresses are void. 

Every Step is an Ongoing Strategy

The process of streamlining contact data is just that – a process, not the end product. Customer research should be a continuous thing, developed in such a way to increase engagement with your prospects. Make sure you’re exporting your contacts’ info into a new system with valid emails, updated names and locations, and buyer personas built out to the fullest.

Take Away

No matter how tedious this process might sound, you should remember that people drive the product and the first step in knowing your potential buyer is research.