If you’re running any type of B2B outreach, marketing and sales data is your lifeline. Whether you’re managing a CRM or a marketing database, the quality of your data determines the effectiveness of your campaigns, the productivity of your team, and even your company’s reputation. But what happens when your database begins to decay?
What is Data Decay?
Data decay refers to the natural degradation of data accuracy over time. In the B2B context, this is particularly problematic due to frequent changes in contact information: employees switch companies, job titles change, businesses rebrand, or even shut down. According to research, B2B data decays at a staggering rate of 2-3% per month. That means by the end of the year, nearly 30% of your database could be outdated or incorrect.
The Problems of Decaying Data
1. Usability Issues
Invalid or outdated data can render your CRM or marketing database nearly unusable. Sales teams waste hours chasing dead leads or reaching out to invalid contacts, while marketing campaigns fail to connect with the intended audience. This inefficiency costs time and money, leading to frustration across teams.
2. Reputation Damage
Sending marketing campaigns to incorrect or inactive email addresses can harm your company’s reputation. High bounce rates signal to email providers that you may be sending spam, which can lead to your domain being blacklisted. Worse, sending emails to catch-all addresses (those that accept all mail regardless of whether the recipient is valid) increases the risk of being flagged as untrustworthy.
3. Ineffective Marketing Campaigns
Poor data quality diminishes the effectiveness of even the best-planned campaigns. If your data isn’t segmented correctly or contains inaccurate contact information, your messages won’t reach the right people. The result? Low engagement rates, wasted resources, and missed opportunities for growth.
How to Keep a Fully Validated Database
Maintaining a clean, up-to-date database requires effort and strategy. Here are some actionable tips to get started:
1. Regular Data Cleansing
Make data validation and cleansing a routine process. Schedule quarterly reviews of your database to identify and remove outdated or inaccurate records. Tools like data enrichment software can automate this process by cross-referencing your data with external sources.
2. Implement Real-Time Data Validation
When collecting new leads, use real-time data validation tools to verify email addresses, phone numbers, and other contact information as they’re entered. This ensures that bad data never enters your system in the first place.
3. Manage Catch-All Emails
Catch-all domains can be tricky because they accept all emails but don’t guarantee delivery. To validate these, consider tools that specialise in advanced email verification. These tools assess the likelihood of deliverability and flag potentially risky addresses. For critical communications, prioritise verified emails over catch-all ones.
4. Encourage Self-Updates
Empower your contacts to update their own information through automated tools. Send periodic emails prompting them to confirm or edit their details in your system. Providing a user-friendly self-service portal can also streamline this process.
5. Integrate Your Systems
Ensure your CRM, marketing automation tools, and other databases are integrated. This reduces duplication and ensures that any updates made in one system are reflected across all platforms.
Conclusion
Decaying data is more than just an inconvenience—it’s a threat to your business’s efficiency, reputation, and bottom line. By prioritising data hygiene and implementing robust validation processes, you can protect your database from becoming a liability. With clean, accurate, and up-to-date data, your CRM or marketing database can transform from a source of frustration into a powerhouse for growth.
Don’t let your data decay hold you back—reach out to solve your data problems.
