In the digital world we’ve talked about the value of user data for quite a while – and it’s something direct marketing specialists have known for years. And yet it seems like the cost of old, outdated data and poor data hygiene is still ignored by so many companies.
In digital marketing terms, it can thousands, or even millions, of addresses which are being emailed and returning ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ bounces, with the cost of sending emails being wasted as those accounts are no longer active or checked.
Or wondering why you get a low response rate when it turns out only 1/5th of your registered users actually visited or logged into the site in the last 12 months.
Bad hygiene undermining brands:
I moved into my house over 3 years ago, and over that time we’ve returned tens, if not hundreds, of letters intended for the previous occupants – that’s something you tend to expect.
But one arrived today which stood out. It’s from a financial institution using details which are 3 years out of date – and furthermore, it’s a financial institution I use. So despite the fact I’ve been using their products with my home as the billing address for over 3 years, that didn’t stop them mailing the old residents.
And although I’ll just return it with the rest, it’s stuck in my mind when I consider the fact this company has probably more details and data on me than any non-Government agency, and yet still makes simple mistakes. If they can’t figure out that the details they’re using don’t add up, and don’t have any type of CRM flag to highlight the fact it doesn’t add up, do I really want them having access to more sensitive data?
Or will the wasted cost of one letter and envelope also potentially lose them a significant amount of business if I switch because they’ve lost my faith in them?
People seldom leave their new address with someone they owe money when they don’t intend to pay. A financial institute usually continues to mail to an address that they know is probably no good because it is all they have. If the amount client owes is nominal the institution wants to keep adding fees/interest without taking them to court and must by law attempt to inform customer. Also the government makes financial institutes continue to pursue the client if institute wants to claim the nonpaying client as a lose.
Hi,
Cheers for the comment, and if it was due to owing money, I’d have been calling the company involved as soon as it arrived. In this case it was direct marketing for a financial product, so I’ve let the company know, but don’t have much hope of them finally amending their records.
Ordinarily I’d be more understanding, but the fact that they have all my details as the home owner does make it slightly harder to understand why they decided to mail someone who hasn’t been here in years (again, if it was months I’d understand, but it’s about 3.5 years)…