I have been working with multiple clients in the past year. All of them have at least one thing in common. They rarely have a clear overview of the data sent to CRM or marketing automation platform(s).
This article is for marketing specialists and managers as well as sales rep team leads who are:
It will help you avoid a costly mess in the future and stay on top of what's happening in your CRM and marketing automation tool.
I have been working with multiple clients in the past year. All of them have at least one thing in common. They rarely have a clear overview of the data sent to CRM or marketing automation platform(s).
It does not matter how big the company is. If there has never been a dedicated CRM specialist at the company, there's usually:
Who owns the data? Is it accurate? Is it duplicating any other data points? What are the definitions? Is it actively used? Are we paying for that mess!?
All of the above takes time (and money) to untangle.
Teams start using CRMs or marketing automation tools at the beginning of their company's journey. Having a full-time employee maintaining the platform and helping colleagues with it doesn't make sense.
Different teams use it differently, importing data and naming it whatever suits them at the time. Some data might be dynamic; some is from that webinar import in Q2 2021. As there is no dedicated owner to manage the CRM and ensure the data is up to date, it just piles up.
Alternatively, there was this freelancer guy who helped with the integration. Too bad he didn't write anything down.
Whoever has used or built integrations for the CRM has left the company. This makes creating proper documentation a headache, especially if there is no clear description of events and customer profiles. (If Jason is still in the building, ask him to write stuff down now.
Unused or irrelevant data has to be cleaned up on an ongoing basis. You're taking out the trash once in a while, right? Cleaning up data that has been piling up for a couple of years is an unnecessary cost. It's much easier and more efficient to do small checkups occasionally. Try gathering your trash for the whole year and managing it then. Not the most pleasant of experiences.
The resources to untangle the CRM data in a year or two will multiply as you must ensure what can and cannot be trusted. In addition, there's a need to clarify who might still use parts of it and if that even makes sense. Engineers, sales, fellow marketers, and other resources might be involved, which increases the total time lost on figuring it out. At this point, you might even think about wiping it all out and starting from scratch (don't).
“Decluttering your data is infinitely easier when you think of it as deciding what to keep, rather than deciding what to throw away.”
Before any automation or improvement can be made, cleaning everything up and documenting sources, descriptions, triggers, and other related parts is essential to extract the full potential of your CRM or marketing automation tool. You can skip it only for the short term.
The easiest way to do it is to have a proper documentation system in place from the start.
That's why it's my rule to leave extensive documentation for each data point, workflow, or automation I touch. It's crucial that you can follow and understand everything, up to the smallest detail.
To simplify your life with CRM, you'll find some resources below to help you structure your data.
