We recently caught up with Scott Mackintosh, the CEO and co-founder of Databud.
He gave us some insight into the world of data, as well as the importance of building efficiency into your sales and marketing functions
Can you tell us a bit more about Databud?
Databud was launched earlier this year as a data services company and is part of the Think Methodology Group.
We are all sales and marketing professionals at heart, so we understand the value of data and how to get the best from it.
Our aim is to use data to build a clear picture of a company’s customers to predict how they could behave in future.
But there’s little point in having high-quality data without a platform to store it, or measure and improve sales results.
That’s where KulaHub fits in. It’s part of our group of companies and is the glue that sticks everything together! It’s here where your data is organised to activate your sales and marketing strategy.
What role does data play in sales?
I believe that data is the lifeblood of any business. Being able to harness it into your sales and marketing processes can be extremely powerful.
Once you know what drives your company’s sales, you can understand where more can come from and use your resources more efficiently.
Why do businesses need high-quality data?
A business can’t use its data effectively if it isn’t in good shape. Therefore, it’s important to establish the health of your company’s data before it’s put into KulaHub.
This is where our data quality audit comes in. We aim to understand how incomplete the data is, how many errors there are and whether or not it has decayed over time.
Once these blanks are filled in, we will match the data to Red Flag Alert’s database of UK businesses to build rich company profiles.
We can find data on the company’s turnover, how many employees they have and what their net assets are.
How can companies use data to improve sales?
Once your data is complete and up to date, you can then put it in your CRM and use it to help your sales team work more efficiently.
This is the point where you can start to do amazing things.
For example, you can predict your customers’ future behaviour and use this to make sales decisions.
By connecting KulaHub to Red Flag Alert, you can get a financial health rating on every UK business. You can then remove companies that risk insolvency from your sales lists.
This will make your sales team much more efficient as they won’t waste time contacting companies that later go bust—that’s a clear business benefit.
Good CRM data also allows you to create highly personalised sales messages that address each persona’s buying habits.
This could be used to increase the conversion rate of your marketing campaigns.
For example, you’ll be able to predict which businesses are overdue for their next stock order based on their buying habits.
You can then send these customers a message reminding them of their last order and inviting them to purchase more.
What is the importance of keeping business data accurate and up to date?
To give you an idea, the Office for National Statistics predicts that business data decays at over 25% per year.
If this isn’t dealt with, your sales team will waste a huge chunk of time using out-of-date contact details that lead nowhere.
To avoid this you could regularly buy new data, or you could use a tool that automatically updates the data for you—like Red Flag Alert.
Continuously improving and updating your data means that you can build efficiency and effectiveness into your sales and marketing function.
Can you recommend some data management best practices?
The most important thing to do is understand what data your company needs and ensure that it is collected consistently from across the organisation.
This will allow you to do accurate analysis and forecasting—especially if you have reporting tools to quickly crunch the numbers for you.
I would also recommend getting a CRM, as this allows you to manage and store data in one central location. This gives you easy access to the information you need to inform your sales and marketing strategies.
Join the Kulaverse
KulaHub is an online CRM and email marketing system for growing businesses. Our experts will help get your data into shape and show you how to get the most out of it in future.
Our users also have access to powerful data visualisation capabilities and automated workflows, as well as unique insights into their customers and prospects.
If you’d like to learn more about how KulaHub can help you develop a data-driven sales strategy, contact Andrew Booth on [email protected] or call 0800 049 6044.
