Data Cleaning and Enhancement

Data is usually collected from a number of different sources by a range of different people - anybody from the customer, to a staff member, to a contracted agent. Data can be recorded differently depending on both the source and the nature of the recorder and thus can be subjected to many idiosyncrasies.

Data cleaning and formatting is the first step towards data-driven marketing. If your basic customer information is mis-spelt, out-of-date or inaccurate, you can alienate customers before you even begin. Clean data helps you to maintain good customer relationships by minimising the likelihood of annoying or offending your customers through data inaccuracies e.g. by mailing someone twice, or addressing a male customer as 'Dear Madam'.

Clean data also helps to maximise the success of your marketing campaigns by reducing waste and is a pre-requisite if you wish to augment your customer information using external data sources (Census data, for instance).

In essence, Datamine's cleaning and enhancement services smooth out the variations in the way people fill out forms and enter data. Once smooth, the data can then be enhanced by appending data such as the New Zealand Post postcodes or Census data. Datamine has a subsidiary business, set-up specifically to help companies reap the full business benefits that accurate, high quality data can bring. AddressWorks is also a New Zealand Post SendRight Certified partner, helping companies retain their bulk mail discounts with both free and low-cost technology tools guiding the way.

To find out more, visit www.addressworks.co.nz