Your contact database is central to your marketing strategy, and the quality of this data can have a significant impact on the success of your campaigns. Periodically cleaning up your database is an essential, albeit arduous task. Here are a few tips to help get your contact contacts in order.

Eliminate Invalid Records

Removing or updating contacts who are no longer employed with a particular organization is the first step in your data cleanse. You’ll find many of these records have already been noted as so, but still remain in your database. Cleaning up these records will help to eliminate clutter and reduce the size of your database. It also ensures you’re not sending irrelevant or incorrect email messaging, or damaging the reputation of your email domain.

Organize Lists By Territory

Ensuring your contacts are filtered into the correct salesperson’s territory will make your team more efficient and reduce disputes over commissions. You’ll first want to separate your contacts by state, and then assign each state by territory. You’ll want to segment national accounts separately as many of them may overlap multiple states and territories.

Segment Target Verticals

Segmenting your lists by vertical allows you to craft highly targeted messaging and ensure only relevant contacts are receiving that information. Most companies target a variety of verticals and micro-verticals, so this process can be a challenge. The upside is that if you do this, and continue the practice, you will be able to created targeted account-based marketing campaigns which are extremely effective in acquiring key accounts.

Validate Email Addresses

Running your entire contact database through an email validation tool is an important step in cleaning up your data. Anyone who comes back as invalid may have changed companies, updated their email address or their company may simply no longer be in business. In either case, these records should be looked at and updated prior to including them in any marketing campaigns.

Make Sure Records Are Marked Properly

Making sure the status of each contact reflects their place in the buying cycle is essential in following up and nurturing your prospects. Prospect, lead, nurturing lead, customer, follow up and not interested are just a few of the options when updating the status of a lead. This is another way to help segment your audience and make your campaigns more targeted and successful.