The Global Associates B2B lead generation companies cannot expect to have a smooth workflow without maintaining a flawless database. Even minor errors can render the entire effort of a B2B lead generation agency worthless whether the data is sourced from multiple vendors or manually entered by the in-house employees of the agency or whether it’s a combination of both. Time is money in this competitive age and it’s virtually suicidal to engage in manual cleansing of a faulty database that can take hours upon hours of an organization’s productive time. Not only this, working with an error-filled database can lead to a lot of frustration and tension among the employees, something that should be avoided at all costs.

Importance of having an effective data cleansing process:

It’s very important to have an effective data cleansing process as this can help you avoid time-consuming methods of firefighting that lead to frustration and many lost opportunities. B2B lead generation companies would do well to use a process that allows them to target the areas where their data is weak and needs more attention. This can help them save a lot of productive time and use it in approaching prospective clients. Here are a few tips for an effective data cleansing process.

What can it do for you:

An effective data cleansing process will help you eliminate errors, dupes, and format inconsistencies and maintain a flawless database. However, if you think that it’s a one-time process that is not the case. One needs to continuously use the process to keep improving the data quality. Let us take a look at the essential steps of an effective data cleansing process.

• Proper Planning:

The first step in an efficient data cleansing process is to identify the set of data that is vital for the operation of B2B lead generation services. The way forward is to classify the data into various categories according to their importance and start with the topmost category in the hierarchy. If you want to make the database really useful, make specific rules for validating data, a set of rules that will standardize the process for future work. The basic idea is that if any two persons are entering the data, they should do it in exactly the same manner.

Adopting an effective data cleansing process is imperative for B2B lead generation companies in many ways. 

Maintaining a flawless database is a must for The Global Associates B2B lead generation companies if they have aspirations of flying high. It is virtually impossible for B2B lead generation companies to grow rapidly if they work with a database that has errors, dupes, or format inconsistencies. Failure is certain if care is not taken to keep the data relevant and free from errors.
We were discussing in our previous post about a data cleansing process. That post mentioned the need to prioritize the data and emphasized how important it is to focus first on the data that is most critical to your marketing efforts. It is advisable to start by taking small chunks of data and at the same time set validation rules to standardize and cleanse the existing data and automate the process for the future. Let us continue with the discussion here and list out the next steps of the data cleansing process.

• Data analysis:

Once you prioritize the data critical to your B2B lead generation company, the next obvious step is to analyze the missing links in your data and try to find out what is superfluous or irrelevant. Resources must be allocated to analyze the data and data should be cleansed manually wherever necessary. Automating the cleansing process is essential no doubt but there are times when you need to employ human effort also. It depends primarily on the existing quality of the data, sometimes it is required to make exceptions to the set rules.

• Standardization and automation:

While cleansing existing data is a priority, it is equally important to ensure that all future data is automatically cleansed as its being entered so that the database remains error-free. This can be ensured by standardizing the process and creating workflows. Depending on the amount of data the B2B lead generation agency is working with, the process should be repeated periodically to make sure that both new and previously entered data are flawless.

If the database of B2B lead generation companies is full of errors or anomalies, a business can take a hit, so the data cleansing process assumes great importance.

It is absolutely vital for The Global Associates B2B lead generation companies to maintain a flawless database. B2B lead generation companies cannot afford to work with data that is full of errors, dupes, and inconsistencies, it is a sure recipe for disaster. You lose a lot of productive time on purging the database, moreover, it causes frustration among the employees and diverts their attention from more important issues. We enumerated the first three steps of an effective data cleansing process in our previous posts- prioritizing data, analyzing data, and standardization and automation for entering future data. The discussion is continued here.

Filling in the missing data:
Even though standardization and automation are very important for maintaining a flawless database for a B2B lead generation company, one often comes across types of records that cannot be corrected automatically. Employing human resources to find these records and fill in the missing links becomes imperative for any organization. For example, you cannot correct through automation the names or the telephone numbers of people that are wrongly entered. You need to find the right sources to get the correct information and then rely on your data entry operators for removing the errors. These sources could either be your personal contacts, internet directories, or other viable sources.

Periodic monitoring of data:
While the first four steps of the process are very important for maintaining a clean database for B2B lead generation services, the final and most important step in the process is to make a system in your organization for periodic monitoring of the data. This is easier said than done since it’s a complex process. You need to do it for your entire data as an overview and also for each individual unit. For example, an organization has to monitor its employee records to keep track of who’s working for the organization, and how valuable each individual is. Similarly, one needs to keep an eye on all the correspondence including the emails that bounced or remained unanswered; equally important is to maintain the accounts and so on.
It’s virtually impossible for B2B lead generation companies to function successfully without a flawless database. Therefore, the data cleansing process assumes great significance. However, the most important thing to understand about the process is that it’s a continuous process, not a one-time phenomenon. You need to repeat all the above-mentioned steps periodically to ensure that you are working with data that is free of errors, dupes, and inconsistencies.