October 4, 2021  |  Lynn Schear

Why data hygiene is more important than ever

One word is redefining the workforce, and therefore the business–to–business customer base: turnover. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 4 million Americans quit their jobs in July 2021 alone – a total that was actually down from its height this spring.

The tech and healthcare sectors have been hardest hit by what is being called The Great Resignation, with 3.6% more healthcare workers resigning this year than in 2020 at the height of the COVID–19 pandemic.

Education professionals are quitting at astounding levels, too. The Brookings Institution reports that fewer teachers are committed to staying in education until retirement, and in January nearly one–quarter of teachers expressed a desire to leave their current positions.

What does this mean for businesses looking to form new partnerships in K–12 education and the healthcare market? A greater emphasis on continually updated, verified data.

Data hygiene: always crucial

If your sales messages don't reach the right people, you might as well be stapling them to telephone poles. In a time where employee turnover is higher than ever in the business world, you do not have time to waste on prospects who have moved on.

Even worse, if duplicated contacts result in multiple contacts with the same person, your reputation could be damaged. If you don't have your sales list in order, what else falls by the wayside? From a purely financial standpoint, misdirected promotional materials are like pouring money down the drain.

The time to get your data freshly cleaned is now, because it's a task that gets more expensive the longer it is put off. Research by "Making Quality Work" authors George Labovitz and YuSang Chang holds that it costs $1 to verify if a record is correct, $10 to fix it, and $100 if nothing is done about it. For companies that aren't proactive, the costs of bad data can snowball quickly.

A growing B2B company's data can double every 12–18 months. Cleansing your data isn't fun – it's like an oil change for your car. But like an oil change, it's not optional. When you choose the right data integration tools, MCH can help you use them to meet the needs of your unique business model, creating flexibility that lets your strategy evolve.

Data automation is the future

Automated data features within ESPs and go–to market platforms now allow for more than just a regular purge of outdated and duplicated contacts. MCH can help you find the right platforms for your data quality management. New automation tools and data delivery options help companies stay competitive through data enrichment, deduping and matching leads to accounts.

• Use batch processing to improve efficiency by setting priorities and completing jobs on a timeline you control.
• Link new data purchases from multiple vendors to automated workflows.
• Control the standardization and segmentation of multiple data sources into a single format to be used for segmentation, scoring and routing.
• Make use of multiple delivery methods for CRM and MAP, and reduce your number of API calls.
• Consolidate your system of record for more efficient and powerful analysis.

MCH is made up of the kind of detail–oriented people who love to figure out which tools work best for each individual client. Reach out to an MCH expert today and we'll get started on a custom solution. Because data should work for you, not the other way around.