With current concerns and theories about the specific changes that will be made to data regulation following the adoption of the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the upcoming introduction of the Fundraising Preference Service, it remains clear that data is an extremely valuable commodity and must be treated as such.

Did you know that amongst the wide range of marketing and fundraising services available at Yeomans, we can work with you to audit, cleanse, manage and store your data appropriately, ensuring that your contact lists provide good quality information that can work most effectively for you?

There are many benefits to regularly auditing and cleansing data, these include:

• Ensuring that your organisation is compliant with current legislation concerning data collection, handling and storage.  This also includes ensuring that you are legally able to use your data in the way that you wish and that any information is securely stored so your contacts can be sure that their information is safe and secure
• Protecting resources and minimising wasted costs (eg: print, mailing and postage) by ensuring your campaigns aren’t being sent to incorrect addresses or recipients
• Promoting your organisation positively and professionally by ensuring that messages are only sent to relevant contacts.  This not only lessens the risk of upsetting people with unwanted mailings but also helps supporters feel cared for and valued as they’re only sent relevant information
• Gaining intelligence and insight into your supporters which can be used to inform future marketing actions and campaigns
• Improving effectiveness of marketing.  Cleaning your database of incorrect or duplicate contacts is likely to mean you have more time to spend looking after your “live” contacts and can concentrate on delighting them with the correspondence they’re sent

Yeomans offer a wide range of Data services:

1. FREE Data Audit – 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) and mover information from Experian and Royal Mail
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 contacts you know will not respond to your communications can help reduce mailing costs and avoid annoying your supporters.  Data can be suppressed using:
   1. Gone Away Identification
   2. Bereavement Processing
   3. County Court Judgements
   4. 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
6. Data Enhancement– There are many ways that we can work with you to enhance your data providing vital information and intelligence to understand your contacts better. For example, we can append information from the following variables to your data, enabling you to segment and target your lists and providing additional insight to drive future marketing and fundraising campaigns:
   • Gender
   • Date of Birth
   • Age bands
   • Marital status
   • Length of residency
   • Directorship information
   • Financial Strategy Segments
   • Personal income model
   • Financial Stress
   • Property council taxation
   • Household Tenure
   • MOSAIC – classification tool describing socio-economic and socio-cultural behaviours for all individuals in the UK
   • Household Income model
   • Lifestage

Good information is key to effective marketing – you are only as good as your data and, with the GDPR (Brexit notwithstanding), the pending introduction of the Fundraising Preference Service and likely changes in regulations as a result, it’s vital to keep your data up to date and safely stored.

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 and talk to Phil.

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.

Images courtesy of istock