THE HIGH COST OF BAD DATA SOME THINGS GET BETTER WITH AGE. YOUR DATA IS NOT ONE OF THEM.

HENRY SCHUCK Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer Henry Schuck is a leading entrepreneur in sales intelligence and lead generation. Having founded IT sales leads intelligence company DiscoverOrg in 2007 when he was 23, he has led the company on a rapid growth path. Under Henry’s leadership, DiscoverOrg built the industry’s most accurate, highest-quality contact database, not through technology like webscraping or crowdsourcing but by employing a team of more than 100 data analysts who continually call into thousands of IT, marketing and finance departments. DiscoverOrg was recognized for the quality of its datasets with both a Stevie® and a CODIE award. It was also named a Leader and ranked Number One in customer service by G2 Crowd.

THE HIGH COST OF BAD DATA

SOME THINGS GET BETTER WITH AGE. YOUR DATA IS NOT ONE OF THEM.

Table of Contents

What is Bad Data? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

4



Ignorance is Not Bliss. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6



How Does Good Data Go Bad? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8



When Does Good Data Go Bad? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10



Consider the Source. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12



The Real Cost of Bad Data. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14-19



Data Health Check . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20



A Better Data Solution. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22



Dedicated Staff . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24



Sales Intelligence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26



So Fresh and So Clean. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28



Getting It Together. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30



About DiscoverOrg. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

WHAT IS

BAD DATA?

WHAT IS BAD DATA? Incomplete, inaccurate and empty fields within your database or Customer Relationship Management (CRM) platform are all forms of Bad Data. No organization is immune to it. Many are aware that Bad Data exists; however, few realize the high costs involved with ignoring it. And fewer still take proactive measures to combat and treat the source or cause of the Bad Data. Which category do you fall into?

COMMON DATA FIELDS THAT ARE NOTORIOUS FOR HOUSING BAD DATA INCLUDE:

Wrong phone number



Outdated physical address

Wrong title or job function ?! No phone number or no email address

Wrong email address ... Misspelled or incomplete company name Most companies struggle to keep their data up-to-date and accurate. Missing, incorrect and stale data wastes time and money. However, keeping data constantly updated and verified requires a lot of time and resources, causing many companies to turn a blind eye to the problem that seems too big to address within current staff and budget. TWEET THIS

IGNORANCE IS

NOT BLISS

IGNORANCE IS NOT BLISS Data quality is too often not considered a critical success factor in prospecting. More often, sales and marketing professionals tend to focus on the big stuff. They consider outsourcing nurture campaigns or keeping things in-house; they consider the expertise of the team doing the outreach, and even what technologies are needed to facilitate and track the performance of their prospecting efforts. They analyze open rates and response times, hours on the phone, meetings set, opportunities opened. However, the devil is in the details. All of these efforts start with contact information and (ideally) intel on the targeted prospect. The quality of this data is often overlooked.



EACH YEAR SALES DEPARTMENTS LOSE

APPROXIMATELY 550 HOURS AND $32,000 $ PER REP FROM USING BAD PROSPECT DATA.

Source: LeadJen Study

Good data is an essential element in successful sales campaigns.

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HOW DOES GOOD DATA

GO BAD?

HOW DOES GOOD DATA GO BAD? Sales data changes often. It is a reflection of the dynamic nature of industries, organizations, and employees. In order for your sales and marketing efforts to produce the best results, you need to have the most updated information readily available. Change is a constant in modern business, which means that your data has to be constantly updated in order to stay valid… and even useful. How does your data go stale?

PROSPECTS:

• change roles within companies



• leave their current companies



• change phone numbers



• take on additional responsibilities within their current companies



… AND NO ONE UPDATES THE RECORD IN YOUR DATABASE OR CRM.

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WHEN DOES GOOD DATA

GO BAD?

WHEN DOES GOOD DATA GO BAD? So, you’ve updated the data. Check. Now, you should be good for a while, right? It is not that simple. Data is in a constant state of change, like the people and organizations that it represents. How often do these critical contact data fields change? The answer is, more often than you think.

•

40% of email users change their email address at least once every two years



•

15% change it one or more times per year



•

20% of all postal addresses change every year



•

18% of all telephone numbers change every year



•

21% of all CEOs change every year



•

25-33% of email addresses become outdated every year



•

60% of people change job functions within their organization every year



IN THE NEXT HOUR,

58 BUSINESS ADDRESSES WILL CHANGE, 11 COMPANIES WILL CHANGE THEIR NAMES, AND 41 NEW BUSINESSES WILL OPEN. TWEET THIS

CONSIDER

THE SOURCE

CONSIDER THE SOURCE ?

?

?

What is worse than good data that has gone stale? Data that was never correct or complete in the first place. Your CRM or database is only as good as the data that it contains. However, sales and marketers alike often look to outside resources for contact data – purchased lists or databases – without considering where the data came from or how it was collected.

Commonly-sourced methods for purchased contact data are subject to a variety of issues that result in poor data. If you are using commonly sourced data and are not applying a generous dose of effort yourself to verify the accuracy of the data as well as update and append the data frequently, then your database will never be accurate and your sales and marketing efforts will miss opportunities.

WHAT ARE SOME OF THE SHORTCOMINGS OF COMMONLY-SOURCED DATA? • End-user submitted data: Reliance on end-users to submit and update their data depends of the motivation of those users to actually change their information. This information usually lags and does not often include updated email addresses or direct dial phone numbers. The utility of this kind of data is limited. • Technology-sourced data: Often data providers use webscraping and search technologies to create and update data from what is available openly on the internet. There are two problems with this method: 1) There is no way to actually verify that the data is correct; and 2) This does not provide information beyond what your sales people can gather on their own.

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THE REAL COST

OF BAD DATA

THE REAL COST OF BAD DATA Bad data can cost companies money in a variety of ways.

Bad contact data can increase the acquisition cost by $11 / record.

The soft costs of bad data include the lower satisfaction rate of employees as they experience less success, spending a large portion of their time doing background research or working through call lists that have low yields. The hard costs include the opportunities that the organization misses out on

Source: http://blog.eloqua.com/the-high-cost-of-bad-data

because they were not talking to the right people or reaching out to the right organizations as these prospects were seeking solutions. Not to mention, the time wasted! These impacts are sometimes not visible to organizations until they have been resolved. Managers may not realize how bad data has impacted morale until good data is available and they see the difference in the staff and realize the increase in efficiency.

JUST BECAUSE YOU DON’T KNOW ABOUT LOST SALES

DOES NOT MEAN YOU HAVE NOT MISSED THEM. TWEET THIS

THE REAL COST OF BAD DATA Sales reps spend 1/3 to 1/2 of their cycles trying to reach contacts that are no longer at their respective companies or in the same position. Besides the hard dollar costs associated with this wasted time there is also a significant opportunity cost associated with the time that could have been spent engaging with good prospects.

Sales calls get routed to vendor hotlines or to gatekeepers who may not even be aware of the organization’s need for a solution. These calls almost never get to a decision maker. Sales reps waste valuable time navigating corporate switchboards and operators instead of being able to contact prospects directly.

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THE REAL COST OF BAD DATA LeadJen examined 12 lead generation campaigns across industries representing over 100,000 connections made by phone or email. Their study found that conducting a lead generation program without first investing in cleaning data wastes 27.3% of each sales rep’s time, or 546 hours on average a year per rep! Source: http://Ieadjen.com/data-roi-study-cost-not-vaIidating-data-whitepaper

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THE REAL COST OF BAD DATA Without proper email marketing practices, marketing emails go to dead records, get caught in spam traps and honeypots. Email deliverability drops and your organization ends up on vendor blacklists. Without complete lead records, marketing automation systems are unable to segment properly, and your emails end up with untargeted messaging - demolishing open, click-through, and response rates. Without updated physical addresses, direct mailers get sent to old records, often being returned to sender – wasting time and money.

MARKETING SHOWS LOWER OPEN, CLICKED AND CONVERTED RATES AS IT PROSPECTS TO FALSE OPPORTUNITIES. DEAD END

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Marketing cannot produce leads that are better than one-off, single point-offailure opportunities - Sales reps call the single contact a few times then close the opportunity. All because of Bad Data!

THE REAL COST OF BAD DATA

MarketingSherpa found that every year 25-30% of data becomes inaccurate. They concluded that lead generation programs fueled with incorrect data results in a drastic decrease in marketing effectiveness and sales conversions. Source: http://www.marketingsherpa.com

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DATA HEALTH

CHECK

DATA HEALTH CHECK HOW DO YOU KNOW IF YOUR DATA IS BAD? DO THIS QUICK 5-POINT DATA HEALTH CHECK TO FIND OUT:

YES NO

1. 2. 3. 4. 5.



Do you trust your data? Does your data quality satisfy the needs of your organization? Do you have processes in place to keep your data updated? Does your data synchronize automatically across the systems and sources your staff uses? Does your sales team have updated data so that they can spend their time selling, not researching?

If you answered NO to even one of the above questions, you should spend some time reviewing the quality of your data and evaluating the solutions outlined on the following pages. TWEET THIS

THE BETTER DATA

SOLUTION

DEDICATED

STAFF

DEDICATED STAFF Dedicating a team to manage sales and marketing data is one reliable option for keeping your data clean. In fact, list and data sourcing were found by The Bridge Group to be the top 2 challenges of over 600 surveyed Technology Sales Executives. They recommend that “companies hire full-time resources to do nothing but keep contact and account data clean.” If you were to create a perfect team to update and add to your current prospect database, what would that team look like? What would the process look like to provide optimal quality data, constantly updated, with reliable results?

• Start with live, US-based employees



• Call into prospects, verifying contact data, immediately updating inaccuracies in a central database



• Use technology to verify that email addresses are correct



• Identify projects that targets are working on



• Identify the decision making structure at target accounts to ensure that your reps are not talking to



people who have no purchasing or decision making authority

• Refresh contact data at least once every 90 days

• Add new hires at target companies to a central database and map those new prospects into the organizational chart

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SALES

INTELLIGENCE

SALES INTELLIGENCE Most organizations do not have the resources available for a dedicated team to manage contact data. Fortunately, sales intelligence solutions exist to fill in the gaps and provide insight into your top prospects. However, not all sales intelligence solutions are created equal. What should you look for in a sales intelligence provider? Here are 5 steps to help you select a Sales Intelligence Solution: Assess how they collect data. Where does the data originate? How is the data verified? Is the source reliable? Evaluate the accuracy of the data. How is the data verified? Does it come with guarantee? Are you able to sample the data to verify yourself? Demo the interface or integration. How easy is it to access the data? How intuitive is the tool to use? Can you filter and search the data to easily find your target audience? Does it integrate with other tools that your team already uses? Gauge the depth of the intelligence provided. Are the phone numbers direct dials or main line? Does it provide multiple points of entry in the form of a detailed department org chart? Does it provide insight into current spending and initiatives as well as leadership changes? Survey current users of the solution or research customers’ sentiment online. Does the company earn high marks from customers on service and satisfaction? Have they proven their value to current users?

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SO FRESH AND

SO CLEAN

SO FRESH AND SO CLEAN DiscoverOrg takes great measures to ensure the accuracy and reliability of our data. Using a hands-on approach, our in-house team of researchers spends their days making hundreds of phone calls into Fortune-ranked, mid-market and SMB companies gathering and updating contact information and real-time intelligence on these organizations across North America and Europe. This data is then vetted and verified to guarantee accuracy. Each element within a profile is refreshed at least every 90 days to ensure that you have the most up-to-date information at your fingertips.

The DiscoverOrg database allows users to perform micro-targeted searches to identify ideal new prospects as well as update existing contacts at targeted accounts. DiscoverOrg profiles 400,000 contacts at over 19,000 organizations with 96% accurate direct dial phone numbers and 98% verified email addresses delivered in seven segmented and easily searchable datasets.

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GETTING IT

TOGETHER

GETTING IT TOGETHER In addition, DiscoverOrg maps the Organizational Charts at every profiled organization – providing multiple points of entry and access to all key decision makers at once. This gives sales reps the ability to know exactly who they are calling, where that person sits in the decision making structure, and what the contact’s responsibilities include. Want to go straight to the decision maker? You’ll know who that is. Or if you think a ground swell approach will work best, you’ll be able to identify and access the lower-level employees who will influence the decision maker’s purchase.

OUR RESEARCH TEAM SERVES AS AN EXTENSION OF YOUR SALES AND MARKETING DEPARTMENTS –

VIRTUALLY ELIMINATING THE NEED FOR YOUR TEAM TO TAKE PART IN PROSPECT RESEARCH. Aside from constantly updating data, our analysts add over 300 Real-Time Triggers daily - including new hires, executive moves and new spending initiatives. For example, when JPMorgan Chase hires a new Vice President of Information Security, DiscoverOrg picks that up and adds the information to the database with a trigger attached so that companies interested in selling into that organization will be alerted right away.

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ABOUT

DISCOVERORG

ABOUT DISCOVERORG DiscoverOrg is the leading sales and marketing intelligence solution used by the top technology vendors, staffing companies and consultants targeting IT, Finance and Marketing departments of Fortune-ranked, mid-market and SMB companies in North America and the European Union. Offered in the form of a constantly refreshed database, DiscoverOrg specializes in mapping out the org charts of more than 19,000 companies, complete with verified email addresses, direct-dial phone numbers, reporting structure, project updates and technology installed base. Each of the 400,000-plus decision makers in the DiscoverOrg database is updated and refreshed by the company’s team of 100-plus in-house researchers at least once every 90 days, enabling customers to reach the right person at the right company with the right message. The DiscoverOrg Sales Intelligence platform provides:

• Multiple points of entry: Arm yourself with not just one person’s contact information, but the details for his boss, his boss’s boss and his colleagues.



• Insight into the current environment: Know which technologies are being used, projects that are in place, new leadership moves – and use that data to craft your message.



• Shorter sales cycles: Get your foot in the door before the competition and contact the right person with the right message and the right time.

TRY US OUT! SHARE WITH US YOUR TARGETED INDUSTRY AND WE’LL PROVIDE THE



LATEST INTEL GATHERED ON YOUR IDEAL PROSPECT. TWEET THIS

FOLLOW US

www.DiscoverOrg.com Tel: 800-914-1220 | [email protected]