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Update Your Existing Listpage
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Update Your Existing List
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 www.GrowthPanel.com Your house list is an extremely valuable resource if it is updated and cleaned regularly. You may also haveplenty of customer data, but it may not be stored in a single location.Many companies have a great deal of valuable prospect data stored in different places and managed bydifferent groups. Your data is more valuable if it’s clean and you can access all of it.Various organizations have published data about how many businesspeople modify their business card eachyear. Estimates range from 20% to as high as 72%. If it’s 50% and you haven’t updated your file in sixmonths, 25% of your records could have some piece of incorrect information – and that can meanundeliverable mail and wasted money.
If you’re planning a large campaign and you’re not sure whether your list is up-to-date, do a test to a small set of records. Measure the response rate and the undeliverable rate – then assume that the undeliverable rate will hold truefor your entire list. If it’s awful, develop a plan to clean/ standardize/append your data.
Build Your Own List
Here is a basic manual process that works for a manageable amount of data in typical sources – for example,a CRM database, an accounting file and employee contact/email files.
STEP NOTES
Identify all the sources of datayou may have
 
Main prospect database
 
Contact files owned by individual salespeople
 
Email files from various employees
 
Accounting dataDocument the “file layout” foreach file
 
A layout = a document that lists the fields that are used, theorder of those fields, and the type of data in each fieldIdentify any other fields you mayneed in your new master file
 
For example:
 
Record ID – a unique number for each record
 
Account type – customer, prospect, partner, vendor, etc.
 
Account owner or sales rep and/or account manager
 
Source (enter where this record came from)
 
Last modified date – the date the record was last modified
 
Industry
 
 
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STEP NOTES
Format each of the individualfiles so that the fields all match
 
For example, if one file stores an address in a single field andanother stores it in three or four, choose one format andmake the two files consistent.
 
Name each of the fields so that they match each other – itwill be easier when you’re merging.Document the tests you can doto eliminate duplicates
 
Use the “File purge checklist” later in this exercise.
 
When you load the data, an easy “duplicate check” is to lookat the phone number, fax number, company name and URLfor the records. You may have additional data that can beused to find duplicate records.Double-check all fields thatyou’ll use to find duplicaterecords; make sure they areformatted in the same way
 
For example, if one file uses parenthesis around area codesand another uses dashes, the same phone number may notmatch and you’ll be left with duplicate records.Create a master merge file
 
If you’re going to load your file into a CRM system, it may beeasiest to merge/purge your data into a master file beforeyou load it – the data may be easier to manipulate in aprogram that you’re very familiar with.Document the number of records in each of the filesyou’re going to merge
 
Use the “file merge checklist” belowMerge the files
 
When you’re finished, enter the final record count. It shouldmatch the sum of the number of records in the source files.Begin testing for duplicaterecords
 
When you find duplicates, review the data in each of theduplicate records and put it in one primary record, thendelete the duplicates.If there are too many records for you to efficiently complete the last step, here’s an alternative process:
Additional steps to automate themerge/purgeNotes
Create a “duplicate flag” field It will store a value (i.e. YES) for those records you think areduplicates
 
 
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Additional steps to automate themerge/purgeNotes
Go through each of the searchesand enter the selected value(YES) in the duplicate flag fieldFind all duplicates Search for the value you entered in the duplicate flag fieldExport all of those records orsave a copy of the file and deleteall but the flagged records`This file will become your new working file for merging theduplicatesDelete the duplicates from theoriginal master fileWhen your duplicate file is cleaned up, you’ll just re-import thoseclean records back into the masterSeek help in automating themerge/purge processFor example, someone who knows Access or FileMaker Pro couldbuild a series of tables to help automate the process and producea single clean fileImport the new clean file backinto your master
Mail processing vendors can also provide merge/purge and de-dup services to your entire list or on a mailing by mailingbasis.
File Merge Checklist
Use this table to keep track of the files you’re merging and the number of records in each. When you mergeeach file individually, make sure all of the records have successfully imported then check Yes.
Filename Source of data# of recordsbefore mergeSuccessfullymerged?
YesYesYesYesYes
Sum of merged records (A)
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