Data hygiene: Keeping your lists clean

I received two pieces of snail mail this week from companies who were attempting to reach me at old email addresses, requesting that I update them with my new email address.

Granted, they were B2C organizations (FasTrak and a winery), so there was a good chance that I was still at my physical address. However, with database quality degrading at a rate of approx. 2% a month, it got me thinking - How can B2B marketers leverage similar techniques to keep their databases clean?

Here's a few things to ponder:

1) With mergers and acquisitions, companies often change domain names, while employees might still be in the same cube.
2) Increased spam issues can force users to change their email address - let's say from a hotmail account to a gmail, or even their corporate email from trish @ domain dot com to treilly @ domain dot com. (Keep in mind that a lot of business people use personal email accounts for research - think whitepapers, articles, webinars, etc.)
3) If you're frequently getting bounced emails and not doing anything with them, chances are you're wasting money attempting to email and/or mail them. Why not send a quick postcard and ask them to get back in touch? Or better yet - pick up the phone and call them to see if they're still at that company, and if not, who has replaced them.

Finally, your marketing campaigns are only as good as your lists. As much as we marketers tend to focus on creative and messaging, the response rate almost always comes down to offer and list. So, invest in your list. Have a plan for dealing with return mail and bounced email. It's sure to pay dividends.