Many arts and cultural organisations have to make their marketing budgets stretch a long way. With this in mind June’s First Wednesday was all about how effective data cleansing can help you to be super-savvy with your budget and data assets. We invited expert Chris Turner from CCR to speak about what you need to address in terms of data cleansing to get market efficiency.

There are lots of great reasons why you should think about cleansing your data, and these are our three top tips taken away from the session last week:

1. Focus on the benefits. Not only will you spend less on post and packaging, but by ensuring your marketing is more targeted you’ll also increase your response rates. Misspelling names and sending mailings to out-of-date addresses or to individuals that have passed away can all be brand damaging. Cleansing your data can protect your organisation’s reputation and boost the impact of your marketing. It will also help you to reduce ink, paper and carbon wastage – improving your company’s green credentials!
2. Start with the end in mind. Work out your requirements first and then ensure that your chosen company is tailored to your needs. Chris stressed the importance of thinking in advance about how you want the data to look once it has been cleaned. Before you start a data cleansing process, agree a layout and format for the returned data with your supplier from the start so that you can get it back into your database without any problems.
3. Little and often. You don’t need to clean all the data you hold every time; it is more efficient to address smaller sections as required. Similarly, you should think about when would be the best time to undertake the work. Change is constant (around six million people move house in the UK each year) and so it’s not worth cleansing all your data in January if your next planned mailing isn’t until December. The data will already be out of date by then!

The informal Q & A at the end of the session highlighted the value of gathering quality data and collecting it in the right way, raising questions about how organisations can work to get internal and external stakeholders on board to develop and maintain a great quality database.

The First Wednesday conversation continues next month with UX Matters, featuring guest speakers from Edinburgh agency Storm ID. First Wednesdays are available exclusively to Culture Republic partners: contact us for more information or to join our partner network.