With spring right around the corner, now is the perfect time to get organized and get rid of the clutter. At the top of your to-do list should be cleaning up your online store’s data.
Even small eCommerce stores manage to accumulate significant amounts of data every day. The problem is that most of this data begins to decay shortly after it’s acquired. For example, people change addresses, phone numbers, and sometimes even names. After a while, marketers are left with data that is no longer useful that clogs up their database and hurts their reporting.
This is why it’s important you take the time to spring clean your online store’s data so that you can improve your marketing campaigns. It may seem daunting, but we have some helpful tips to guide you through the process:
Step #1: Determine the Goals of Your Data
Your data cleansing and organizing will quickly unravel if you don’t have a clear purpose for why you are examining your data. Take this moment to ask yourself what you want your data to achieve and make a list of what information you will need to obtain from your leads. This will help you avoid asking your leads for irrelevant information and allow you to attract a greater number of high-quality leads.
At the very least, you need your visitor’s name and email address so that you can send them email campaigns. Does knowing their job title and industry help you achieve your goals? Avoid asking for too much information too soon, so that you don’t scare off visitors or receive inaccurate data.
Step #2: Reduce Bad Data from Entering Your Database
Bad data is often unavoidable, even with advanced marketing automation solutions. As you build your database, you will inevitably get duplicates, incomplete information, and other forms of bad data.
It’s still important that you make an attempt to prevent bad data from entering your system. This means removing duplicates, fixing inaccurate information, and checking your fill-in forms. If you are getting a significant amount of bad data from a particular form, it could be that you are making some key mistakes that are causing your visitors to input bad information.
Step #3: Clean Up Inactive Leads and Junk Emails
Once you have assessed your database and have a method for preventing bad data in the future, it’s time for the actual clean up. This involves segmenting your email addresses into two categories: inactive and highly-engaged. Check to see which contacts haven’t been opening any of your emails in the last six months. These users are considered inactive.
Don’t give them the boot just yet, though! Give them one more chance by sending them a message asking if they would still like to receive your emails. If they don’t reply, then it’s time to let go.
Another problem you will encounter is junk email addresses. We’ve all entered a faulty email address for whatever reason. As a marketer, it’s an annoying issue to encounter. Using the same last-chance message above, you can eliminate these low-quality contacts as well.
Step #4: Revisit Existing Leads
Your highly-engaged users are where you make most of your money, but their information can also be outdated. Because they are invested in your online store, it would be unfortunate to lose their interest as a result of using outdated information to market to them.
Now is a good time to check in with your high-quality contacts and ensure that their information is current and nothing has changed. Even leads that you acquired six months ago could have had an address change.
While you’re at it, you can use your marketing insights tools to discover the types of content your highly engaged contacts enjoy and how they are interacting with your brand on other channels. Then, you can send them emails based on their behavior to boost your traffic and sales.
Step #5: Establish a Routine Cleaning of Your Data
The best way to keep your online store data clean and organized is to schedule a routine data cleanse so that things don’t become too messy. The longer you allow your data to accumulate, the more work you are creating for yourself in the future.
If you need motivation to clean up your online store’s data, just think about the impact that bad data can have on your eCommerce store. If you want to become an eCommerce success story, your marketing campaigns need to be fueled by good data!
