Email marketing: the importance of keeping data up to date

Despite the snowy conditions that hit last week, it was business as usual at Mzuri (with the exception that we all had to work from home and could go for snowball fights with children, pets and partners when we needed a break from the computer!). One of the projects we worked on was sending an email marketing campaign for a client with over 6000 people on their database.

The client was well aware that their data was not the most up to date, but had permission from all entries for use of their data for email marketing. Data that isn’t 100% up to date is not unusual – it’s often a combination of having too much else to do, not having a single named person responsible for the database, members of staff moving on, and not taking advantage of website contact forms and online profile management tools that enable the database to more or less keep itself updated without too much involvement from your administrative staff. So, by going through the preparations for as well as sending the campaign, our client has not only got key messages out to their customers, they have also been able to update their database (removing almost 800 email address that for one reason or another were no longer live); the outcome being that they have refined one of their key marketing tools and with each campaign (we’re doing the next one for them this Wednesday), the information on their customers and prospective customers will get stronger and stronger and so will their results. Not to mention the costs – keeping on top of your database inevitably saves you money in the long run.

It is well worth appointing one person in the organisation to take guardianship of a central database. We often start working with companies and before we undertake any marketing activities, look first at their systems and ensure that the valuable data they have about their clients is stored in a easily managable, regularly updated and most importantly single place (appropriately backed up of course). That way, the company will have the strongest possible base on which to develop that database into a valuable marketing tool.

Email marketing is an increasingly important tool in the marketers arsenal and it is evolving all the time. Taking an holistic approach is the best advice – don’t consider email marketing in isolation; instead look at how it can feed and inform the other areas of your marketing strategy and ensure that every element of your marketing is working together towards your goals.