Master your data: 3 key processes to automate in 2024

Navigating large datasets while maintaining data integrity is an ever-evolving challenge businesses face in a data-driven world. The key to overcoming these hurdles lies in automation. Businesses can use automation to master data challenges in three key processes: data quality, campaign operations, and lead-to-account matching.

Make RevOps data quality your first priority

“Poor data quality costs the company an estimated $15 million per year, with a record of 70.3% of data decay.” – Gartner

Data quality is the key ingredient behind most successful, data-driven automation strategies. A strong, clean data foundation ensures processes like enrichment scoring, lead-to-account matching, and routing work efficiently. A “less is more” approach with a few simple strategies can instantly improve your data quality.

• Your data, your responsibility – Platforms like Salesforce or Marketo host your data, but they don’t manage data hygiene. Take time to understand how your data is hosted on other platforms and your systems. Develop simple inheritance processes in preparation for data ownership changes. Simple, thought-out processes equip every company’s team with the same knowledge, prevent knowledge gaps, and eliminate messy duplication.
• Know where to start – Data management gets overwhelming as business priorities and data constantly change. Start by asking yourself, “How does the quality of my data affect long-term results?” Use your answer to prioritize the automation of two to three business-critical aspects important to your bottom line, like data standardization and deduplication, to make data more manageable and scalable.
• Realize perfection isn’t possible – Equally focusing on 100 different problems gets companies stuck. Instead, maintain key processes like keeping cross-functional data lexicons consistent. Consistent lexicons keep businesses focused on the right insights, which enable departments like marketing to make better decisions on strategic initiatives.

Eliminate barriers to connecting revenue to marketing campaigns

“Less than 25% of marketers are not reporting how campaigns impact revenue.” – Hubspot

Like data quality, campaign operations are dynamic and ever-changing. Marketers want to tie marketing campaign activity to revenue, but few think it’s possible. However, marketers can bridge the gap and get more value from their campaign operations with the right strategic implementations.

• Get your UTM reporting in order – Standardize persistent UTM parameters to better tie marketing activities to sales revenue. Set your programs to capture every campaign member’s response to accurately attribute pipeline numbers to each source. You’ll get exact numbers from traffic sources, like PPC and webinars, that provide marketers with accurate campaign results. Follow industry trends closely so you can adapt and adjust UTM reporting strategies for optimal performance.
• Fix 1-to-1 syncing issues – Break down barriers between objects to examine how your data syncs between platforms like Salesforce and Marketo. Badly mapped custom fields are easily one of the main culprits behind bad data syncs. Identify and remove, or edit breaking points to ensure data transfers and syncs operate more smoothly. Regularly audit and update data mapping processes to keep communication clear between platforms.

Set clear rules to improve lead-to-account matching

Poor data quality is one of the main reasons for lead-to-account matching losses. Inaccurate matches result in leads attributed to incorrect accounts, creating confusion among teams, lost sales, and poor data transfers. To mitigate these challenges, it’s important to set clear, well-defined rules that connect leads with the right accounts.

• Deduplicate – Remove duplicate data to better connect leads to accounts. Implement guardrails like giving ops teams the sole responsibility to create accounts.
  Structured rules standardize processes and define roles, which prevent teams from creating duplicate data. Automate deduplication logic to further streamline processes and maximize efficiency.
• Define attribution rules to improve routing – Data routing problems occur when leads entering your system of record aren’t attributed correctly. Bad attribution results in poor engagement, fracturing the relationship between your business and customers. Spend time defining clear attribution rules so teams can contact the right leads with the right rules of engagement. As business objectives and goals change, refine your attribution rules to stay on target.

More game-changing strategies straight from the experts

Staying ahead of the data quality curve is the key to starting 2024 off right. Gain the competitive edge in automation that you need with Openprise’s webinar Top 3 Processes to Automate in 2024.

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