Friday Rant – Cleanliness is next to Godliness – Keep your CRM Data Clean

I’ve had several conversations this week with Sales Managers who lament that, although their reps are utilizing the CRM, they aren’t mandating that the data be clean,, which really shortchanges themselves in the form of implementing automation.  2 places where cleanliness can show immediate dividends is in your CRM’s E-mail and Assigned Rep fields.

E-mail: Although you may not have the customer name spelling right, and multiple people can have the same name (yes Bill Smith…I’m talking to you), e-mail accounts are always unique.  Even if it is a free account provider, they enforce a 6 month waiting period before another person can get kewl_guy7@hotmail.com (Yes Bill – I’m still talking to you).  Ensuring that you have the e-mail address, and that it is unique allows you to nurture your prospects via e-mails, newsletters, press releases, etc….  Also, many third party marketing systems (Bulk E-mail Marketing, Marketing Automation) will attempt to put information into your CRM, and the most logical key to utilize to synchronize that data is the e-mail address field.

Assigned Rep:  When you are automatically nurturing prospects via e-mail correspondence, the best way to make it APPEAR as being individualized is to have it originate from the assigned sales rep, which is information contained in the CRM system.  Although getting an automated e-mail from your sales rep can appear sincere, getting an e-mail from the guy who hasn’t worked for the company in 6 months looks disengenuious.  And what if the message resonates with the person and they respond to the old rep’s account???  Does that address bounce?  You just lost a prospect.  (AUTHOR’S NOTE:  Most CRM systems allow for the bulk update of Account Rep, so if it isn’t right, it’s easy enough to fix)

De-duping the e-mail address field, and keeping the assigned sales representative field up to date can open a world of 1-to-1 “lights out” e-mail marketing, which is personalized, inexpensive, and can be highly effective as a sales and marketing tool.

Have a Great Weekend Everybody !