Data Hygiene and The Cost of Doing Nothing

Prospects often come to Vertify looking for ways to cleanse their contact database, append additional data points for better segmentation and lead routing, or to simply identify more contacts that match their ideal buyer profiles. Smart businesses know that favorable sales outcomes start with data quality. With that said, how can you prevent missed opportunities for revenue and avoid the consequences of doing nothing to clean up your data? 

Messy data leads to missed opportunities

Because of bad data, you aren’t getting the most from your marketing automation or CRM investment. Platforms like Salesforce, Eloqua, HubSpot and Marketo are valuable tools that help you connect with customers and bring in new business, but inaccurate and duplicate data in your CRM lowers the efficacy of marketing campaigns and ultimately, lost opportunities to acquire new customers.

Let’s consider the following “Lost Revenue” Calculation:

Contact Database Size = 100,000

Average ACV = $25,000

Annual Data Decay = 25%

# of Bad Contacts = 25,000

If we use conservative conversion rates for MQLs, SQLs, and Closed Won opportunities*, you would stand to lose $937,500.

Additionally, your company needs correct data about your existing clients to deliver quality customer service and maximize retention. Many organizations today leave email accounts active for employees after they leave the company, meaning that you may not receive a bounce notification indicating the email is no longer valid and your contact has left the organization.  Finding out that your key contact has left days before a contract is up for renewal can be a disaster. Similarly, ensuring that the right individuals are receiving product enhancements, downtime announcements, and other important information is essential to maintaining a great relationship with your business, but if those messages are not being delivered due to bad data, customer satisfaction will ultimately suffer.   

Time is of the essence 

The faster you can convert leads into paying customers, the more successful your revenue stream will become. Time is money, after all. If you can’t get qualified leads into the hands of eager sales reps so they can engage quickly, the potential for prospects to lose interest or review other vendors increases substantially.  

Let’s take a look at sales velocity, which is the measurement of how fast your business is making money:

Sales Velocity = (# of Opps x Avg. Deal $ x % Conversion Rate)/ Avg. Conversion Time [in days]  

Simply put, the less time it takes for prospects to move through your pipeline, the more deals you can close in a given timeframe. Sales velocity plays a huge role in your business’ ability to thrive and grow. The bottom line is — if bad data is creating bottlenecks in your sales process, your sales velocity will suffer. 

Final thoughts about the cost of doing nothing

It’s downright detrimental to your business to do nothing about keeping your data organized, current or correct. Putting off the decision to address your data hygiene may be the worst choice a revenue team, and therefore a company can make. While it may seem like the time isn’t right or it’s cheaper to ignore these solutions, it is likely costing your organization more than you realize. You know your business, but have you quantified all the ways doing nothing with your data could be affecting your revenue?

*Lead -> MQL 5%, MQL -> SQL 15%, SQL -> Closed Won = 20%

written by Ashley Smith, Founder, ArrowSmith Public Relations

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