What Is Good Data Quality?
Good quality data enables businesses like yours to utilize tools and systems to act on this information to their fullest extent.
In the context of marketing, and education marketing in particular, data accuracy and consistency helps you plan effective campaigns. It also enables you to connect only with the prospects that have an interest in or need for the products and services your company provides – and not low-quality or cold leads. Managing big data and ensuring consistent data quality are non-negotiable to relevant, valuable outreach.
Strong data governance means different things to different industries and individual companies. However, while these issues vary in their specifics – every company will have different business rules for quality data – there are some foundational concerns that apply to nearly every use of this valuable business intelligence.
Data quality has a direct impact on the results of business intelligence efforts.
What affects data quality?
Marketing and data specialist Neil Patel highlighted six dimensions of data integrity and quality that can serve as a reliable checklist. These data quality metrics are:
- Completeness
- Uniqueness
- Timeliness
- Validity
- Accuracy
- Consistency
A strong process for addressing all of these elements helps resolve quality problems. It can also improve the results of business intelligence and reporting efforts built on this knowledge.
How do you measure data quality?
Tracking informational quality, error rates, timeliness and other qualities are key components of managing data.
Measuring the practical level of quality can mean very different things depending on your industry. For education marketers, the accuracy, validity and timeliness of contact information are crucial.
With so many prospects to reach out to – and the pace with which professionals in this field churn and change roles – a timely record that accurately describes who works where and what they specifically do is a good starting point for defining quality, as well as measuring it.
The individual needs of your organization can have additional influence on what quality data specifically means to you. Defining what those needs are, then tracking how data relates to them over time, provides a consistent pathway for measuring quality. This helps your company identify areas where improvements can be made, such as in the accuracy of contact information or the timeliness of the roles tied to education professionals.
How can you preserve data quality?
Assessment and assurance position your organization for success in the long term.
This should include internal processes, like giving the data stewards in your business the necessary resources to maintain and improve vital information. Regularly reviewing this asset and engaging in data cleansing is necessary to maintain its usefulness.
Managing data shouldn’t be seen as a finite project. It needs to be an ongoing effort that has a regular supply of employee time and resources dedicated to it. That’s especially true for companies, like education marketers, that have to regularly update hundreds and thousands of records.
Working with a partner that has a demonstrated history of providing consistently high-quality data is another way to address quality data management concerns. While some work may still be required to analyze and act on the information shared, a data partner can provide a continuous stream of relevant, accurate, complete, unique, valid and consistent data. They can also offer tools for optimized engagement, market intelligence and data integration.
Agile is here to help your company’s business intelligence processes with dependable, actionable data. To learn more, get in touch with us today.
