Data Hygiene Best Practices to Unlock the Full Potential of HubSpot

Data is the lifeblood of any successful sales and marketing strategy. But just like your physical health, maintaining good data hygiene is crucial for optimal results. Here at FullFunnel, we're all about maximizing your investment in your tech stack tools, and that starts with ensuring your CRM data is clean, accurate, and aligned with your ideal customer profile (ICP). Let’s discuss the hidden costs of poor data hygiene and our best practice recommendations for success. 

The High Cost of Dirty Data

Studies show that up to 25% of data in CRM and marketing automation platforms can be inaccurate or outdated. This "dirty data" can wreak havoc on your sales and marketing efforts:

• Wasted Resources: Targeting the wrong leads leads to wasted time, energy, and budget. Imagine the impact of sending personalized marketing campaigns to outdated email addresses or irrelevant companies.
• Ineffective Strategies: When your data doesn't reflect reality, it’s virtually impossible to develop effective sales and marketing strategies. Your decisions will ultimately be based on inaccurate information, hindering your ability to reach the right audience and understand what’s truly resonating with your ICP. 
• Poor ROI: Dirty data ultimately means a poor return on investment (ROI). You'll likely end up investing in campaigns that don't resonate with your target audience, leading to lower conversion rates and decreased revenue.

Why HubSpot Data Hygiene Matters

HubSpot is a powerful platform for managing your CRM and marketing automation needs. Its user-friendly interface makes it easy for teams to input data, but this ease can sometimes lead to inconsistencies. By prioritizing data hygiene, you can maximize HubSpot's potential and achieve better results.

Top 5 Data Hygiene Best Practices for HubSpot

FullFunnel is a proud HubSpot Solutions Partner with a proven track record of helping leading organizations achieve optimal data function within their HubSpot ecosystem. We’ve curated a list of the top 5 data hygiene best practices to ensure you’re getting the most out of HubSpot. 

Don’t Ignore Standardization and Validation

Inconsistent data entry is a common culprit for dirty data, hindering accurate reporting and targeted campaigns. Establish clear guidelines for data input, ensuring everyone adheres to the same format for names, addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses. To enforce data consistency, leverage HubSpot's property validation tools by going to Settings > Properties > search for the property you want to set a validation for > Rules.  For instance, requiring an email format for email fields prevents invalid entries. By maintaining data integrity at the source, you'll significantly improve data accuracy and the effectiveness of your marketing efforts.

Proactive Duplicate Detection and Merging

Duplicate records can inflate contact lists, distort analytics, and lead to inefficient marketing efforts. HubSpot offers built-in duplicate management tools to help identify and resolve these issues. Regularly review your contacts and companies for potential duplicates, and utilize the Duplicates tab within each section. By merging duplicate records, you ensure your data accurately reflects your audience, enabling more precise targeting and improved campaign performance.

Uncover Audience Insights: Data Cleansing and Segmentation

Data Cleansing and Segmentation are essential for maintaining a healthy and actionable database. Over time, contact information can become outdated or irrelevant, impacting campaign performance. Regular data cleansing removes inactive or inaccurate records, ensuring your marketing efforts reach the right audience.

HubSpot's list functionality allows you to easily create segments based on various factors. For example, creating a list of contacts who haven't opened an email in six months can help identify potential disengagement. Additionally, you should create detailed contact and company lists based on various criteria, such as lifecycle stage, industry, company size, demographics, purchase history, and engagement levels. These segments can then be used to tailor marketing and sales efforts, ensuring that the right message reaches the right audience at the right time.  Through consistent data cleansing and effective segmentation, you can optimize campaign performance and achieve higher ROI.  

Take Ownership & Centralize DataOps

Designate a Data Champion! Decentralized data management can lead to inconsistencies, errors, and inefficiencies. Assigning a data steward or champion on your team establishes clear ownership and accountability for data quality. 

At FullFunnel, we advocate for the centralization of data operations to prevent a "Choose Your Own Adventure" approach where individual team members build and manipulate their own contact lists. Centralizing data operations ensures everyone adheres to the same standards and processes. We recommend implementing robust data governance procedures, including data quality standards, access controls, and data retention policies. By centralizing data management and establishing clear ownership, you create a foundation for accurate, reliable, and actionable data that aligns with overall organizational goals.

Go a Step Further with Enrichment and Activation

Data enrichment is the process of enhancing existing data with additional information from external sources to improve its accuracy, completeness, and overall value. This involves adding new data points or verifying existing ones to create a more comprehensive dataset.

For example, you might enrich your customer data by adding demographic information, company size, industry, or technographic details. This enriched data can then be used for more targeted marketing campaigns, better customer segmentation, and improved decision-making.

Utilize HubSpot's integrations with data enrichment providers to supplement your existing data with details like company size, industry, technographics, and firmographics. Once enriched, leverage HubSpot's workflow automation to activate this data. For example, you can create workflows that segment contacts based on company size, enabling tailored messaging and improved campaign performance. Enriching and activating your data empowers you to deliver more relevant and effective marketing initiatives.

Data enrichment is a critical component of data hygiene. To supercharge your HubSpot data, we recommend using Clay. Clay is a powerful tool that seamlessly integrates with HubSpot, providing access to a vast array of data points to enhance your contact and company records.

By leveraging Clay, you can:

• Fill in the gaps: Identify and complete missing information in your database, such as company size, industry, location, and technographics.
• Enrich existing data: Verify and update existing information to ensure accuracy and relevance.
• Discover new insights: Uncover valuable data points that can help you segment your audience, personalize your messaging, and improve your targeting.

Clay's user-friendly interface and robust API make it easy to implement and integrate into your existing workflows. With Clay, you can significantly improve the quality of your HubSpot data and drive better results for your sales and marketing teams.

How FullFunnel Can Help

Prioritizing data hygiene is essential for the success of your sales and marketing efforts. By following these best practices and leveraging tools like HubSpot, you can improve data quality, enhance campaign performance, and drive better ROI. 

FullFunnel specializes in data operations and can help you achieve data hygiene excellence. Whether you’re looking for help with CRM Implementation, data enrichment tools, or general data operations, our RevOps team can help you maximize your tech stack ROI and drive growth.