Part of my job here at ReachForce is helping our customers with a quick analysis of their marketing database and then helping them update and repair the company and contact information needed for their lead generation programs.  Here’s a list of 10 things I see in almost every marketing and sales database I’ve looked at:

1. Names are mis-mashed up with erroneous information.  Examples:

John “No Longer There” Smith
Jenny (female) Jones
Byron (buy-ron) Doe (Dough)

2. Web-to-Lead forms have left you with a lot of trash.  Examples:

First Name    Last Name    Email                         Company
Test              Test              test@test.com           None
None of        Your              absc@asklfjsl.com    Business

3. Your Customers are still listed as your prospects.
4. You have multiple copies of any one person.
5. Employees of your company are listed as prospects.
6. You have records created with companies someone wants to target but no contacts, instead of holding a valid contact your CRM is being used as a place holder.  OR, you have holey records, pieces and parts of a contact but no whole contact.

Examples:
First Name    Last Name      Email                           Company
Find Name    In Hoovers      na@na.com                 Microsoft
IT                  Dept Mgr        na@na.com                 Exxon
Amy              H.                   ???@reachforce.com    ReachForce
L.                  Wallace           ???@Reachforce.com   ReachForce

7. Phone numbers are missing digits and/or area codes.
8. Bad or Blank email addresses.
9. Invalid or incomplete mailing addresses – maybe you don’t do direct mail, but chances are you need this for something…
10. You have no way to segment your data.  Do you have information on these companies in a standardized format, for instance all tech companies have some kind of tag, or all operations contacts have a specific designation? If not, how are you segmenting your data? Wouldn’t it be easier if everything had the same system of tagging applied to it?

Is is not the most exciting or the most glamorous part of campaign planning but getting your database in order will have a huge affect on the success your marketing programs.