Data is one of your organization’s most precious assets, yet it’s one many businesses consistently undervalue. With a properly maintained and managed database, you’re able to understand who your customers are, what motivates them, and where to find more like them. Given the importance of data to your marketing success, investing your resources in better database management makes sense.
Automation
Database management takes time, and without automation, it can eat up a significant percentage of your company’s resources. Automation lets you streamline routine database maintenance processes and free up your staff’s valuable time for other activities. Searching for and removing duplicate records, updating account files, and synchronization with your CRM are some actions that automation can take over for you. Automation isn’t just a time-saver; it also increases accuracy by reducing the chance for human error to creep into records.
Cloud Migration
Storing data on the cloud gives you far more flexibility than on-site infrastructure, allowing your team to work from anywhere and still stay instantly connected to the data they need. Database services that move to cloud-based storage and retrieval are also more secure than they once were, removing one of the concerns many business owners once had about cloud database access. With the cloud, you’re able to expand your scope for marketing as well, letting your team move about freely in the field while getting real-time information on campaign analytics.
Make Data Mobile
Mobile platforms are increasingly where marketing efforts pay off, so it only makes sense to build mobile design into your database from the outset. When you’re able to manage your database from anywhere, you can instantly update account information on the fly. Send your team to a trade show, and they can scan leads’ data directly from business cards into your database, for example. Business is no longer confined to 9-to-5 office hours, and with mobile-friendly design, your personnel can work from anywhere and at any time.
Single-View Support
Does your database fracture information into millions of data points, or does it integrate it into cohesive, single-view images of individual accounts? Good database management brings data together in ways that give you a unified view of each lead – a view that changes and adapts to behavior over time but that stays faithfully focused on the customer. That single-view outlook makes a tremendous difference to lead nurturing and customer service by providing continuity that only data-assisted marketing can deliver.
Contextualize New Data
The data you already have that migrates to your new database is only part of the story. You also need to have a way to manage the new data streaming into the system. Your database is a library of information about your leads and customers; defining data protocols for how and where to store incoming data ensures that all the information finds its way to the appropriate virtual “shelves” quickly. Systematize how you handle data from the start, and it becomes useful immediately instead of taking time and effort to process.
Advanced Analysis
Data preparation will probably occupy more than half of your database management team’s time. They’re laying the necessary groundwork to perform more advanced analytics on data, and with more in-depth analysis, you derive more useful insights. Give your team time to set up the necessary filters and algorithms to verify your data. Your team can then spot outliers and interpolate missing values to give accurate results no matter what metrics you want to examine.
Stay Current
The leading edge of database management moves quickly, and database marketers must move with it. Agile organizations readily adapt to changes and keep their organizations from stagnating by incorporating new technology and integrating older tech into new systems. Today, you might be tracking data from Facebook and Twitter, but how are you equipped to handle what might be around the corner? Your database management team can help you prepare for the next big thing before it’s even on the horizon.
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