Data is all around us. As I sat in a coffee shop recently, reading a book that I’d purchased on my kindle (other reading devices are available) I found myself thinking how we leave data footprints on a daily basis – whether it’s through online purchases, signing up to newsletters, phone calls, sending and receiving emails, sharing stories of our lives on social media – the list is endless!

Much of this trail of data is left without us even thinking about it, but there’s no doubt that since the introduction of GDPR enforcement in 2018, the issues of data security and legitimacy of collection are much more widely considered and people tend to think twice before handing over their data to third parties now.

This increase in data awareness and protection of personal information is a very positive step as recent developments in data regulation and high profile cases of data mishandling have reinforced that data is an extremely valuable commodity which should therefore be treated as such.

Yeomans has years of experience working with data for ourselves and our clients. We have attended numerous training courses and have achieved professional certificates in GDPR, so we’re well equipped to help with your data projects.  Today we can work with you to audit, cleanse, manage and store your data appropriately, ensuring that your contact lists provide good quality information and are the most effective they can be.

There are many benefits to regularly auditing and cleansing your data:

• Ensuring that your organisation is compliant with current legislation concerning data collection, handling and storage. This includes:
  •  Knowing that you are legally able to use your data in the way that you wish
  •  Ensuring that any information is safely and securely stored
• Protecting resources and minimising wasted costs (eg: print, mailing and postage) by ensuring your campaigns aren’t sent to incorrect addresses or recipients
• Promoting your organisation positively and professionally by ensuring that messages are only sent to relevant contacts and reflect the communications preferences of your supporters
• Gaining intelligence and insight into your supporters which can be used to inform future marketing actions and campaigns
• Improving effectiveness of your communications and marketing - cleaning your database of incorrect, duplicate or out of date contacts is likely to mean you have more time to spend looking after your “live” contacts and can concentrate on delighting them with appropriate communications

With so many clear benefits in having good quality data, not to mention the legal requirements, there are several ways that the Yeomans team can help to minimise your data pressures:

How Yeomans can help with your data today:

1. FREE Data Audits – We can audit your data for FREE to reveal what cleansing and enhancements could be undertaken
2. Data Cleansing – Verifying addresses helps to ensure that your marketing communications can be accurately personalised and delivered.  The cleansing of data includes address verification (using the Postcode Address File (PAF) which has over 27m addresses).
3. Data Validation – Ensure that your communications reach their intended recipients by verifying that they (or their businesses) are present at a particular address
4. Data Suppression– Removing the details of contacts that are no longer correct from your database can help reduce mailing costs and avoid annoying your supporters and/or their family members.  Data can be suppressed using:
   1. Gone Away Identification
   2. Bereavement Processing
   3. Screening against the main preference services:
      • Mailing Preference Service (MPS)
      • Telephone Preference Service (TPS)
      • Corporate Telephone Preference Service (CTPS)
5. Data Matching - Removing duplicate records and ensuring that individuals will not be sent the same campaign multiple times can improve the effectiveness campaigns and avoid complaints

There is no doubt that good information is key to effective marketing – you are only as good as your data and it’s vital to know that you are only collecting data you have a legitimate reason to collect, that you are only holding data for an appropriate length of time and that you are storing it safely and appropriately.

If you’d like to find out more about a free data audit; or for more information about how we can help with managing your contact lists and making the most of your data please contact us.

For additional information about information rights, you can also visit the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) which is the UK’s independent body set up to uphold information rights.

Acknowledgements:

This is an updated version of our blog originally shared on 21 June 2016
Photo by Sharon McCutcheon on Unsplash