As the data explosion continues, businesses see dirty data adding up to real dollars and cents thrown out the window.
Preaching the benefits of “good data vs. bad data” is nice in theory, but it’s not every day that an organization actually runs the numbers to see the implications of their wrongdoings.
As it turns out, however, bad data is costing companies millions. That’s according to one of the most recent blogs by Amanda Nelson, director of marketing at RingLead and contributor to LinkedIn’s Pulse.
Bad data or poor quality data can be classified as anything from duplicate data to missing, inaccurate and outdated information. For marketers, this can be a nightmare, but it should also shock business leaders.
Attacking bad data needs to start at the source, as it’s the only way to get a handle on the staggering amount of data expected to flow through the organization. Due to the ever-increasing amounts of information resulting from the explosion of digital capabilities, corporate data grows roughly 40 percent a year, tech writer Hollis Tibbetts reports.
What’s more is approximately 10 to 25 percent of marketing databases are dirty. Sirius Decisions estimates companies spend upwards of $100 per inaccurate data record on things like direct-mail marketing to wrong addresses and the inability to properly track leads.
Say your organization has 100,000 data records. If roughly 20 percent of that data is dirty, that means 20,000 records are inaccurate. At $100 a pop, say goodbye to $2,000,000. And if left untreated at a 40 percent data growth-rate, expect to lose $2,800,000 in 2016 and $3,920,000 the year after that. On the other hand, RingLead estimates it costs $10 per record to clean up your data, and just $1 each year after that.
Maintaining good, clean data from the moment it enters the organization is no longer only something to aspire to, but a priority. Suddenly CMO’s preaching the benefits of data controls can easily tie the concept of “dirty data” to a number the CFO and CEO can easily understand. Furthermore, high quality data is critical to success in the Information Age.
According to The Data Warhouse Institute (TDWI): Data is a vital resource. Companies that invest proportionally to manage this resource will stand a stronger chance of succeeding in today’s competitive global economy than those that squander this critical resource by neglecting to ensure adequate levels of quality.
Do the math for yourself. How many data records exist in your marketing and sales database? Take 20 percent of that, and then multiply the number by $100.