Research carried out by Wegener DMís Business Data Solutions division has found some major failings in B2B marketing databases across a wide spectrum of industry.
The study involved databases supplied by companies taking up Wegenerís ongoing free data audit service and highlights the need to regularly maintain customer and prospect data. Perhaps one of the most alarming findings was that on average 19.42 per cent of the records analysed for each organisation were duplicates.
Wegenerís research also revealed that 13.03 per cent of the records analysed lacked contact names, 7.96 per cent had incorrect postcodes, 21.17 per cent had blank postcodes, 2.92 per cent had gone out of business, and 1.03 per cent had moved.
Steve Cook, Wegener Business Dataís Commercial Director, says: ìThis research highlights the importance of constantly maintaining customer and prospect databases. Many organisations are wasting a great deal of time, effort and money targeting the same individuals over and over again. Not only does this not make commercial sense, it is also extremely irritating to the recipients involved and is more conducive to losing business than winning it.î
The free data audit which lead to the findings is still available and can not only enable companies to highlight any data cleansing issues they might have, it can also provide them with any available enhancement opportunities, allowing profiling and customer segmentation.
To do this a sample of the records in the database are matched to Wegenerís PrimeFile plus database of 3.5 million records, as well as to The ReaD Groupís Business Suppression File, and the Royal Mailís Business Changes File.
As a result of the findings it is then possible to formulate a data cleansing, enhancement and prospecting programme suited precisely to the needs of the company concerned. This includes identification of those companies that are not on the database supplied, and the provision of net records for future prospecting.
Anyone interested in taking advantage of Wegenerís free data audit should contact Melanie Smith, Marketing Manager, Wegener Business Data Solutions, on
01926 466061, or email MelanieSmith@wegenerdm.co.uk
Free data audit highlights major shortcomings in Marketing Databases
Research carried out by Wegener DMís Business Data Solutions division has found some major failings in B2B marketing databases across a wide spectrum of industry.
