Strategies for building better contact data lists

Contact lists are essential to the success of direct mail and email marketing campaigns. By tapping into customer relationship management (CRM) databases for names, holding giveaways to refresh lists or going to external sources to collect new entries, businesses can effectively boost their reach by hundreds or thousands of individuals, according to Business 2 Community.

In an effort to achieve better results with every effort, many marketing companies are turning to big data, Fast Company reports. Inspired by the volume of information that already exists and is being generated every day, marketers are eager to fill their pipelines with increasing stockpiles of data. Unfortunately, plugging big data into marketing does not automatically mean impressive results. Analytics simply provide a way for users to create a clearer picture of their prospects and learn about existing relationships. 

The focus should be on smart data rather than more data, according to the source. Data quality is finally being thrust into the spotlight as firms realize they need to verify consumers' names, addresses and email accounts before spending the time and money to target them. Address management programs can help firms weed out the information that is no longer correct or timely to ensure that companies are only using the most relevant content. 

When implementing a data quality plan, it's also important to remember that there isn't a single quick-and-dirty solution, according to The Data Quality Chronicle. Tools and programs can help organizations clean up an existing problem, but professionals needs to stay vigilant in their efforts to prevent mistakes from creeping in. Employing the most basic measures, such as paying attention to outcomes to identify errors and correlating those end results to possible root causes, can become a foundation for better information management.