No matter how you look at it, quality data is your lifeline. It can bring in new leads and more sales for your business. Recent findings from Experian’s 2015 Data Quality Benchmark report cite that 81% of marketers agree that data is critical to their success with 78% of companies confirming that they have encountered email deliverability issues in the last 12 months. Poor email deliverability often stems from inaccurate or bad email list data. And it’s more common than you might think. Low quality data can infiltrate into your email list impacting your lead generation efforts which can cause low deliverability scores, high bounce rates and insufficient sales leads.
For long-term business growth, focus on maintenance of your email list. But cleaning your email list to remove invalid email addresses, spam traps and other bad data that will lower your overall email campaign score is only the first part of the equation. The other half is to invest in an email sending platform, such as Clickback’s Email Lead Generation software, to ensure that your emails are getting delivered to your recipients’ inboxes. Additionally, you’ll need to replenish your email list by acquiring new contacts. To make sure that you’re getting the most from your email data, take note of the below items:
Segment and Clean Your Email Data
As mentioned, clean data is the cornerstone to email leads and sales generation. Invest in data hygiene maintenance to de-dup your email list and verify that the contacts you have are good and valid. Then divide data into sections based on how the contacts were collected (i.e. contacts downloaded content from your website, contacts you met at a tradeshow or contacts you purchased from a reputable data provider) so you can send more relevant, on-point messaging to them. Merging cold data with warm could negatively impact your email deliverability, bounce and open rates. Isolate your warm, opted-in leads from your cold business contacts by grouping them into buckets based on the method you acquired them. Use Clickback’s Email Lead Generation software to send emails to your list of cold business contacts. This is essential so the emails you send will enable sales.
Continue to Grow Your Email List
New potential customers are something companies are often in short supply of. Continue to fill your database with sales opportunities by capturing them at every entry point – your website, tradeshows, social media channels, referrals. However, the fastest way to replenish your email list with new prospects is by purchasing data from a reputable data provider. They can provide you with tailored, industry-specific business-to-business data that you can use to build your email list instantly so you can grow your business and secure new profitable sales leads. Remember that home-grown lists take an average of two years to create and the individuals on that email list may not be your prime audience. Qualified sales data can be bought. And it has the potential to help you generate more leads, more sales, in less time than organic list-building methods.
Align Sales and Marketing Data
Marketing can deliver an endless supply of leads to their sales teams. But if the leads are poor or the data is not easily accessible, then it may present more challenges or inefficiencies. Something that could be prevented if sales and marketing teams communicated more frequently. In fact, 63% of organizations lack a coherent, centralized approach to data quality according to Experian’s 2015 Benchmark report. Mismanaged email lists, and improper alignment between sales data and marketing’s data is one of main reasons that communication breaks down between these two departments. Connect marketing and sales by having monthly meetings. Identify which drivers produce higher quality sales leads. As marketers, it’s our job to continually drive leads. And to do that, we need to become familiar with our email list data, understand how to use it most effectively so that you can identify patterns, take action, and send more personalized email messages so you help push new profitable leads in sales’ funnel.
Does your company have cold email lists? Contact Clickback to see how they can help.
