Insightly_Ep16
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Jordan: [00:00:00] Well, welcome back, everyone. It is another session of our Insightly podcast, and if this is your very first time listening welcome to Alyssa and I's little data nerdy hour.

~I should have named it. Yeah, data nerds. ~Really, if this is your first time tuning in, this podcast is really centered around all things data and as it relates to businesses and organizations ~and ~Alyssa and I ~really ~started this podcast because we were having a lot of these conversations in a conference room with just [00:01:00] ourselves, and we thought, you know, maybe other people might benefit from this, ~but also ~whenever we ~kind of ~take these conversations outside of just ourselves, we also learn a ton, and we're just super passionate about this, ~and ~so, ~If you are, ~if you work in a business, this podcast might be for you.

It doesn't matter if you're a super techy person, it doesn't matter if you deal with like CRMs or what you typically think data is. We really try to make this relatable to all roles within a business, ~but as we're talking about trends and tips and all of those kind of things, we also try to highlight.~

The challenges that exist. Data moves quick just like technology does and so there's a lot of shifts occurring and we know that activating data is a challenge because there are a lot of components to it. So anywho, anything to add on that brief description, Alyssa?

Alyssa: No, I think I will add. ~I was gonna say no, but I do have something to add.~

I was just like, Reflecting and thinking that companies that utilize data and leverage data, like that is the greatest competitive advantage moving forward. 100 percent [00:02:00] I think that's also part of my why for this podcast is because, you know, no matter if that's like starting really small right now or huge BI initiative, like using data that you already have within your business, like will Set you up for success.

Yeah, I want people to know how to do that

Jordan: Yeah, and I think that I would agree that that's part of my why as well and I think in a lot of our conversations what I really Try to focus on is I mean a lot of what I do in a sales and marketing world is now dependent on good data and good insights to know what direction to go in and they're more often than not I have to start with identifying like, well, what data do we even have?

And we get into some scenarios where maybe the data just isn't structured in a way that it can actually be activated, which kind of hinders our ability to really hit the ground running quickly. ~But that's also a part of today's conversation. ~So if you are tuning in on video and you're like, [00:03:00] who's this amazing lady that we've got joining us here today?

It is our absolute pleasure to introduce everyone to someone that we just talk about constantly. ~Every time we're together,~

Alyssa: we talk about this person.

Jordan: Shae Blevins, with Third House Company. ~Oh my gosh. ~I have known Shae, like, our entire adult lives. We met in college. Our careers have crossed and intertwined.

~Like ~throughout the last 10 to 15 years. ~I'm not counting. We don't have to count but ~what I have really adored about knowing Shae is ~Well, I'm just gonna kind of toss out a few things that I use to typically describe her ~Shae is a Jane of all in marketing ~and Everything else. I mean ~you have excelled at Everything from copywriting and great content creation and social media management and, you know, all of those kind of things.

But you've also helped run global photo shoots and video shoots. You've run major media, ~you know, ~relations campaigns and, but I think one of my favorite [00:04:00] things about you, Shae, is that you love all the things that I hate.

Shae: And

Jordan: one of those things that you love that I hate is cleaning up dirty data. ~And friends, that is what we're here to talk about today.~

~It is spooky season. ~This episode is going to be airing in October and one of the spookiest things that could happen in your data is dirty data and bad data hygiene. And so

Alyssa: Do I get to add the things I love? Oh yeah, please do. Please, like, let's just take, let's go along this path. I just need a minute.

~Please do. Okay. ~So I met Shea, not as long, but it was in 2020.

~ish? ~Yeah. We went through a program together called The Thread. ~And here in Wichita, shout out. Shout out WCBA. Shout out.~

And we were in a mastermind together, and at the time I didn't know we would work together. ~Like, I just was like, ~I don't know, it felt, you were kind of debating what your next moves were, kind of figuring out where your career was headed, and I was there, ~you know, ~we were all supporting each other. And then, when you started Third House Co., had been like kind of secretly like hoping, like, how can I ~like ~get her to help me, because for InfoFluency I was I was running marketing. I wasn't actually doing it. I was ~like ~[00:05:00] subpar trying to send out emails every once in a while. And so Shea started helping us in, it's been a year, over a year. ~Oh, yeah, it was a year.~ a year.

Shae: Yay! Oh, yay us!

Alyssa: We started with an audit and she told us everything that was wrong. That you absolutely need to do.

Shae: Opportunities.

Alyssa: Opportunities, yeah.

Shae: Opportunities.

Alyssa: opportunities. Opportunities. I think now we've spent the past year like going through all those things. We've done everything that Audit showed we've fixed and cleaned, but my favorite thing about Shea is her ability to balance the line of like anticipating needs, still seeking like approval, but also just like doing the things that need to get done, right?

Like there's just not many people that can really clearly anticipate the needs of a business, especially when you're doing that in so many industries. Like that's, I think that's really like amazing ~and ~and literally, like, my mom and I, it's like something totally unrelated to Mark, which is like, you think, Shae?

Would you tell Shae about that?

Jordan: No, call Shae frequently, where I'm like, okay, this has nothing to do with any of the projects that we're on right [00:06:00] now, can just, like, bend your ear for five minutes? Yeah. Because, like, you are sound advice. I feel you. And you'll tell it like it is, right? Oh,

Alyssa: And last thing I'll say is that I'm in, like, multiple networking communities, and Shae and I are in one group together. think she is like, one of the most easy, the easiest people for me to effusively praise and refer. 100 percent And I probably am, you know, I'm around a lot of other people that want to be referred, or we're trying to, you know, help each other out. And I just, I'm like, yeah, they seem like a nice person, but with Shea, I'm like, I can literally like, Tell you what she's done for me and quantify that.

Jordan: But should we admit our problem right now? Yeah, our problem. We've referred you too many times. Like, we can't. We can't anymore because we still need Shae. So, we're actively figuring out how to clone you. But mean,

Alyssa: she can hire someone, clone them, and then

Jordan: Yeah, before we started this recording, we were literally just talking about could [00:07:00] Shea start a component of her business where she trains other people to be Shea? As long as I get the OG Shea, I'm totally fine.

Alyssa: Yeah, the other people that we refer to her can get the other people.

Okay, but I want to know, like,

Jordan: how do you do what you do?

Shae: Okay. So the how is not, I don't, I have no idea. Cause most like, thank you for saying all those nice things about me. I just super appreciate that.

I'm going to put that on my website when I build it. It'll go on LinkedIn. It's fine. ~No, I, I, ~I approach everything I do with like a desire to organize and process it. I want it to be very timeline, very, you know, Step by step, and not everything does that, but I try to fit it into a step by step and a timeline and a process because then you can start anticipating.

So once you have the back end built, you can go, okay, well here are the needs that pop up automatically all the time, and that's how you anticipate needs. It's helpful when you have the experience to do it with any specific client or any specific project you're working on. I have [00:08:00] experience with InfoFluency, so I can, I know.

~When things are going to hit, ~when things need to hit~ and sometimes when they, you know, and I, ~and when new things come up, you can pivot really easy because you have that structure. And so I like having structure in my work and I like having structure in my data.

Jordan: Well, before we get into the since we just like spewed a bunch of things that we love about why don't you take the opportunity to tell people what you really want them to know Talk to us about Shae Blevins. What, and what do you focus on with Third House Co.?

Shae: So, my business really focuses on specializing in helping organizations onboard sales, marketing, and business development processes. And those processes and campaigns can include anything from content marketing to email marketing to, ~you know, ~managing your social media.

I really, really love building that process from business development or from marketing to business development to sales and [00:09:00] watching customers move through that journey You know I don't do a whole lot on ~the second like ~the back end of that like the customer portion of that like once they become A customer unless they're coming back around for that For that nurture or that upsell or that cross sell.

But I, what I really love to do is help businesses figure that out. And then on the other side of that, I also really love going through spreadsheets. It is psychotic.

Jordan: But I love, see this is, and this is one of those areas where I'm like, thank God for you. don't know the number of times that I have received where it's, you know, you start going through kind of like your discovery of let's talk about data blah blah blah and if you've listened to any of our previous episodes you might know that Alyssa and I did a short episode on like to spreadsheet or not to spreadsheet with your data and some of those like over complicated scenarios that we talked about like when it's probably time for you to like move away from the spreadsheets or like beyond time for you to move away [00:10:00] from spreadsheets. Those are the kind of like, dirty data scenarios that I might get from a client and then I open it up and I immediately want to cry. It's not that I don't know how to organize a spreadsheet. It's not that I don't know how to run formulas. It's that my brain literally breaks at that point because I am so much better at looking at the data once we've, like, I like the planning piece and the front end of it. Okay, what do we need to look at? What do we need to analyze? Yada, yada. What kind of actions and stories are we hoping to see? I want it visualized. Like, I want to skip everything else in the middle, and then I want it visualized so that we could say, oh, here's all the things that we know now.

Here's all the things that we need to optimize. That middle piece of cleaning up the ugliest spreadsheets I've ever seen. If there was an award for this, like, would get it. I've never, I don't even know if there's like, I don't know if I've ever even heard [00:11:00] anybody say like, That is a beautiful spreadsheet. But when I get it back from Sham, like, that is the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.

Alyssa: Yeah, talk to us about why you like that so much, and what is it about that process?

Shae: ~Think, ~I think I like spreadsheets because you can always go back to a spreadsheet. You can always look at, if you have a mess in your CRM and you don't know where things are, or if you have a mess in your contact database and you don't know where anything is, you can always go back to a spreadsheet.

You can manually edit a spreadsheet you can assign rules to the spreadsheet. uh, you can, you can lock it down There's so much you can control in a spreadsheet, and there are so many things in platforms, software services, like for CRMs or marketing, etc. That they have those rules. You can build those rules, but they don't all work the same. So, you know, you look at a software, you look at a CRM, generally, it works the same as every other CRM.

It does the same [00:12:00] things, but it doesn't do them the exact same way. It doesn't do them the exact same way ~and sometimes the rules are not well described. ~Sometimes the system is new or it's one of those startup CRMs that's cheaper. And it's not quite perfect yet. And once you get into those things and you run into those roadblocks, The spreadsheet still works and the spreadsheet will never not work unless you corrupt the file in some way. ~But, ~but, I think that's why I like spreadsheets. You can always go back to a spreadsheet. You can always go back to square one. You can also start with the dirtiest spreadsheet in the world and find the gaps a lot easier than looking at it contact by contact by contact.

Jordan: Yeah, that is so true. Also why I love what InfoFluency does by bringing all of this data into a singular or like a single viewpoint. Because nothing infuriates me more than when I'm trying to like correlate contact journeys or [00:13:00] find common themes. And if you don't have like a system where you can kind of pull it into one spot to, you know, analyze it. It is so infuriating to have to look at things by contact by contact or company by company. mean even HubSpot that has its like sales and marketing suite connected. I'm like why am I like you give me the data over here about how the marketing performed and then I have to open up individual contacts to see which ones did something. Like, like I just want to explode. Anywho, yeah. Can we kick it back just for a hot second because something that we kind of talked about in a couple of our other interviews and I think this is a similar theme here. is we've interviewed people so far that really are in data oriented careers now but didn't start going down that pathway. Shae and I went to Wichita State University together. I think you were a year ahead of me or we were maybe in different majors so we didn't cross paths until maybe like our second or third [00:14:00] year there. Knew of one another, similar friends and everything. Were you journalism?

Shae: I was journalism, yeah.

Jordan: OK, how did you go from journalism to, when we both, graduated and started going into our careers, Shae's been a writer, she had her own blog for a number of years, you were one of the original foodies in town before, like, influencers.

Shae: totally gave up.

Jordan: So how did you go from like content really heavy like what traditional marketing focus was to data?

Shae: In college I wanted to be a journalist. I really did. And I love writing stories, I love interviewing people, I love talking to people and telling their stories.

The era in which I graduated with my journalism degree, there was a huge downturn.

Jordan: Yeah we graduated in recession..

Shae: ~So, ~so journalism was not an option if I wanted to pay back my student loan. So I ran off to grad school to teach. I taught public speaking and that paid for most of my master's degree. And in my master's degree, I took a lot of like quantitative and [00:15:00] qualitative and statistical, like communicative classes and loved it.

And I also was introduced, like, for the first time to marketing in grad school, like, Oh, I could do this for a living instead? This pays? That's awesome! Heck yes! So ~I, ~I transitioned in grad school, and when I got out of grad school, I went straight into marketing specialist roles. And historically, in my career, there was a lot of, ~like, ~content, there was a lot of process, ~there was a lot of you know, ~there wasn't a lot of data.

And that was specifically because a lot of the data that I was working with in banking and aviation was locked down, so I didn't get to use a lot of data. I think as marketers, we have had to pivot a lot. We have to pivot like content strategists and content marketers. They have to pivot now with AI and marketers in general, generalists, like I used to be we had to pivot.

We had to incorporate data because it is, Almost required as part of the job description now to know what you're working with and what it's doing and have [00:16:00] the ROI of your campaigns and that's just from the measurement portion. first

Jordan: That was a game changer when we started doing that at the agency.

Mhmm. When we were able to actually start reporting on beyond just impressions and clicks and actually show like the user journey and Some of my, like, favorite moments when we work together at the agency is when we could actually see those results and then we would be able to collaborate and talk about, okay, if this is what we're seeing, how does that influence the social media strategy that you're working on?

How does that influence the media strategy that you're working on? ~And, so, there were a lot of, like, that was kind of my first, like, opportunity to actually see, like, it's not just about reporting, so it, it shows the client that, are getting a return. ~It was like that actual collaborative brainstorming that, like, when we're in school and you're taught, like, that's what agencies look like, or it's like super collaborative.

Really, I did not see that until that moment. That was true collaboration.

Alyssa: Data fostered the collaboration.

Jordan: Yeah, data fostered that collaboration for us. At least for us, on our Yeah Yeah. ~I mean, ~

Shae: Data fosters a lot of things. And, you know, from a measurement and reporting perspective, you are able to see what's [00:17:00] working, what's not working, pivot, adjust.

Strategize, and all of those pieces, when you find, like, when they finally fall into place just perfectly, and you're seeing what you want to see, that is, like, the most rewarding thing in the entire world.

Jordan: So, today's topic, we want to get into that dirty data scenario, and really talk about not just how it impacts your ability to, like, get up to speed and get up and running and whatnot but, when you're approaching those scenarios, what do you need to get around it?

And so, Shae first start with in aspects of business development and marketing and sales, what are some of the platforms or tools that you're using? ~hmm. All right. ~to uncover data like how do you use data?

Shae: The majority of the data I work with, data covers a lot of types of things.

It's got a huge definition. The data that I work with is very individual specific. So it's customer data, it's leads data, and that is going to be their contact information. So these are your [00:18:00] contacts. Imagine you want to email your newsletter, the emails you're sending, that's the data that I with.

When I am in those spreadsheets or systems like a, you know, a constant contact or a sales force or a HubSpot, all of those various CRM, email marketing, even social and media buying software platforms and tools, the data that I'm working with is specific to an individual.

Jordan: Which is, I think, really important to highlight because we've talked about this a little bit when we talked in data privacy and some of our other conversations that, Especially in today's world, like, if you are really trying to make your paid media perform effectively, if you're really trying to stretch your marketing dollars further, you really need to adopt more of, like, a customer centric mindset.

You really hone in on the segments of contacts or customers that you're trying to look at, and how do you use that segment to identify others who look like [00:19:00] them? How do you use that to then, you know, ~do you ~optimize your paid campaigns for greater performance, and how do you measure it to see of those contacts that we've sent out who actually responded, because as you mentioned, like, marketers have had to pivot, and it's not even that, like, marketers need a report on, here's what the campaign did. need a report on, this is what it did, and here's how it relates to the sales that we were trying to achieve, and sales comes from direct customers. Yes. So, glad that you pointed that out. would you describe Dirty Data?

Shae: I have lots of, I have lots of terms. I think, I wanted to say old, but I don't like the word old.

Dated. ~Stale. Dated. ~Has a long history of not being touched. dusty. Dusty. Got cobwebs, cobwebs in the corners. ~The Yeah, oh, they get cobwebs! So ~the dirtiest data I see from a contact perspective is when those contacts are disengaged or haven't been nurtured or haven't been categorized or segmented in some way.

We have just a bucket of [00:20:00] people. And buckets of people are not good for marketing. Because that's like throwing you know, here's my offer. Across the room and trying to get into that bucket of people and then hoping you can find the one that picks it up.

Jordan: Spray and pray. See what happens.

Alyssa: Gone are the days though, gone are the days of spray and pray, right?

Jordan: Right. ~Mm-Hmm. , ~ ~ ~that is like when you would, ~you know, ~do these major ~like ~broadcaster, cable TV buys. I mean, cable was even at, even in like traditional sense, cable was always like a little bit more targeted than broadcast. Because, ~like, ~at least you can say, ~okay, ~on average, these types of individuals watch ESPN, or something like that. But still, it's a huge gamut of people. ~Like, ~When you see target personas today that are even like, Okay, your target persona is between the ages of 25 and 54, female! Can we talk about all of the segments of women between the ages of 25 and 54? Yeah, it really is, anyone, any category. ~yeah, like the, ~a [00:21:00] recent project that we've been working on, one of the things that we identified is ~like ~outside of just knowing where those contacts might exist in a sales pipeline, we didn't have really any details on, What they would be interested in.

What they would be interested in, what their preferences were, how the conversations even got started, where these leads even came from, like what the refer lead source was, like, yeah.

Alyssa: Do you ever find the problem, like, outside of just them not being activated or used in any way? Like, they were pulled in from okay, we had this event, and we pulled this subgroup and this event, and the naming conventions are different, and what they tracked about them is different. ~So, like, leaving, like, guess the naming conventions, and then also leaving like, NOLS. ~Interesting information that you would want to know that you have about some, but not about others.

Shae: Well, I think when you're pulling in contacts that you've met. So like your CRM is where you house all your leads, obviously. Or a spreadsheet. When you're pulling in all of those contacts that you've met, one of the things that I always recommend is to categorize them immediately. [00:22:00] categorize them as standard as possible. So you want a standard method of categorization. If you meet someone at a mergers and acquisitions event, m and a, m and a, there we go.

Then they need to be m and a. You can subcategorize as much as you want, but that high level category needs to happen almost immediately. So now, you know. These are contacts who I have engaged with about mergers and acquisitions or about~ you know, ~business intelligence or whatever else that you're working on, ~whatever your other project or product or service offerings are, ~you have that high level categorization and you can say, all right, I'm going to create a campaign around that categorization and inside of that campaign I'm going to put, ~you know, ~maybe it's an email campaign, I'm going to put some triggers on these links and see what they do.

See what they do with these And if they don't do anything, you know, you re engage them in a couple of months or so. You do some sales process around it. But ~the, ~the idea there is that you have a high level categorization. You know what ~you're not, ~you're supposed to be talking about to them. And if they don't engage, they are not a lead. That's If they don't engage, they are not a lead. They're [00:23:00] not ready for you. Put them on the back burner.

Alyssa: What about if they're not ready for you, but there's another strategy at play? Cause I'm just thinking about like, It's like M&A I went to an event Wednesday.

I did put all of my leads at the hotel that night. Took pictures of all their cards, put them in, tagged them. Three times, like done the thing. ~But like, ~They may not all buy from me. They might not be direct. They may be channel partners. They may be referral partners. ~ like, ~because I think that even that level of categorization in the data starts to be really helpful.

But I think, like, people barely tag. I mean, I feel like you, I wouldn't say to do that, but

Jordan: I think the challenge that I often see is that there's kind of a blurry line between what's a prospect and what's a lead. I mean, anyone's a prospect until they prove that they are or are not elite, right? And so, ~like, there, but that's where also, and this is where, ~like, being really good partners with, and you're in business development, so then being really good partners with the business development team, one of the core challenges that, [00:24:00] we experience as marketers is when you're talking about like categorizing and segmenting, it always comes back to, Well, how much time do I need to take pulling in data entry that's actually going to deliver a reward?

So, if you have a sales team, like, sitting down and doing all the tagging and everything that you described, that can seem really cumbersome ~on a what if, maybe, you know? ~But it is highly important because otherwise, all you're doing is having conversations on what your gut feeling is. There's no data to analyze to see. Okay, well maybe the individuals that are currently prospects, like, we don't have any way of knowing, ~like, ~how have they engaged with us since you last met them. We don't have any way of knowing, ~like, ~what other, ~you know, ~groups or whatnot that they're actually a part of. And so, a lot of times what I end up seeing is that if you have, ~like, let's say ~a bundle of business cards from an event, oftentimes they'll be added as contacts. May or may not be touched any further than that ~based on gut feelings of how Profitable or how successful they might be Instead of maybe entering them into like a welcoming type journey just to gauge interaction just to gauge engagement ~A lead does, or a person does not become a lead until they've given you [00:25:00] some sort of qualifier to say that they are interested in what you have to say and that they have a need for it.

That can be a long ~prospect, ~process between prospect to lead because it involves relationship building. Especially if you're in a B2B, ~you know, ~environment. ~It's not like ~It may start with some elusive question that they're asking that is like kind of sort of related to what you do then you start ~have you know ~having good conversation with them just like as friends and as contacts and then you start learning about well the thing that you actually need is not what we provide I'm going to refer you to someone else or I'm just going to tell you it's not what we provide or you end up finding that I can actually help you with and here's how it impacts you but a lot of times we dump in those contacts or what is We dump in the contacts, and then we choose whether or not to follow through with them based on gut feelings. And then, marketers often hear, well that didn't work. Or, when [00:26:00] it's like, well you've got 300 prospects in here, what are we doing with them? Well, none of them are good. Why are they here? Why are they even here? ~That is how I want to get spooky in return. You know, and, and those, ~

Shae: Those contacts that you make that are not quite leads, they are going to come back to you in some way, as long as you're building that relationship.

And a lot of times that falls on a single salesperson on a small team or a sales team in general. That relationship building portion is so important and it has nothing to do with data, but it has everything to do with being. A good salesperson. ~Yeah. ~

Jordan: And ~that is what, ~that is what business development and salespeople are so good at is creating conversation. And learning about people. The, and what I wish lot of teams would realize is that the CRM is essentially the diary for that. So if you're just engaging over a coffee and you learn, okay, they still haven't given me. A great reason for us to continue forward, but I actually just got a referral. Note that because then if you start to identify that you have prospects that aren't [00:27:00] good business but they make great referral that is a segment could be built on. And there are, you know, ways to identify that in the, in your first interaction and in future tagging opportunities. I do like I talk a lot about email marketing because focus a lot on email marketing.

It's one of the platforms that I specialize in and processes that I specialize in. ~But, you know, that, that, you know, dumping of contacts. ~We want to make sure that we are treating them with the respect that they deserve. You've met them. Let's build a relationship with them before we start, ~you know, ~putting them in nurture cycles or something like that.

So, you know, if you drop them in a nurture campaign to get them to eventually buy something from you, people know what's happening now. People know that there are CRMs, especially if you're B2B, that CEO knows he's in a CRM. He's in every single CRM. For every company that could possibly sell. So that is making sure we're treating that contact with respect to that contact information with respect. It exists in your [00:28:00] CRM that it can stay there. If you sell it, that's bad. If you use it inappropriately, that's bad. ~And that is the super spooky. ~

Alyssa: ~don't ~

Jordan: ~know. I tried connect it to Halloween and I couldn't do it. Yeah. mean, what you just hit on. With us with and I think marketers are somewhat to blame for this, you know, because it's oh we have all these prospects Let's immediate like when you're told we've got to create sales go and just like push out to these people I will say that I have talked to so many marketers where it's like this is how I would have liked to have done This is how I was kind of told to do it where it goes away from that Introductory education, you know, kind of moment to straight up promotion, sale, blah, blah, blah. ~That can tick someone off so fast because it's like you literally shook my hand at this event. I trusted you with my information. You said something about us going and getting a coffee, but now I'm immediately getting a sales promo in my inbox and I've got 400 to clean out after this event. Thank you so much.

Of course you're not going to get engagement off of that unless it is the hottest burning thing on their list right now. And those hot burning ~like ~responses are what ends up clouding our minds thinking, well that worked, we should do it more. No, you just happen to hit that one person at the right time.

Everyone else is irritated.

Shae: And ~it's, ~it's, it's, it's a, it's a fine line. I mean, ~there are, ~there are policies and regulations in place that prevent certain things from happening A lot of the people that I work with directly ~do, ~are not affected by those policies and processes, ~so, ~so, you know, ~it, ~inbound is always best, and that is just [00:29:00] making sure that somebody's coming to you, and that's going to be for your advertising, that's going to be through your organic content outreach, that's going to be through your relationship building.

They're coming to you, if they give you their information willingly, and then say, yes, I want to continue to receive. Your information. I love your information. That's going to be your best prospect. That is a prospect that can turn into a lead faster or more concrete and those concrete prospects turning into concrete leads turn into customers because you have built a relationship with them based on respect and trust.

Jordan: So, we've talked a lot about dirty data in relation to either incomplete contact data or contact data being in the wrong field or whatever. How does that impact a business's ability grow, to market?

Shae: So, you know, imagine you have all of these leads, they're coming in, you have, you know, first, last name, company [00:30:00] name, email address, you have nothing else to go off of.

You can go in and clean that manually going, this company works in this industry. I have this product that matches that need, da, da, da, da, da. That is one of the steps that I would recommend doing before doing a whole lot of outreach. Unless you have, you know, a welcome series that gets people ~to, ~to indicate to you, this is what I'm interested in.

Like preferences. Yeah. I run manage preference campaigns for several or have for several of my clients. And it basically dictates, Hey, are you interested in this content? If you are not interested in this content, please unsubscribe, . You know, it's kind of like a clean yourself out.

Yeah. Or we're gonna clean you out.

Jordan: Yeah. Which I think sometimes like, and we've been a part of these conversations together where, you know, there are some clients where it's like, well. No, I just want to get started right now. I just want to do this thing right now. They don't want to do the foundational work necessarily, but in order for any sort of campaign or [00:31:00] strategy to be formed, we have to know what we're working with, and we have to know, like, who's qualified. We, we recently had a scenario where we thought we had a lot more contacts to work with than we really did when, like, when you just looked at it from a CRM level, it was like, oh, cool, we have a ton of contacts within these segments, within this segment. When you actually pulled it, though, a great number of them were missing email addresses. So, again, unless we were opening up contact by contact, we would have never figured that out until Shea pulled this dirty spreadsheet and started, you know, Correlating things to find, like, okay, actually a third of this list, we don't actually have contact information for them. did they come from? out they were LinkedIn leads. That just kind of started out as like a cold call, kind of cold outreach, no previous relationship from what we could tell. So then that kind of changed the strategy a little bit of, well, if a third of these [00:32:00] contacts don't have emails, Then, obviously, we're not going to be able to contact them that way, so what do we do about the LinkedIn scenario? And then, as we kept like peeling back layers of this onion, what we realized is this strategy is actually not so much about moving them ahead in the pipeline. It's about identifying who should actually be in the pipeline to begin with. And we've found quite a few people who have zero business being there. ~It's, it's a, it's a great way to categorize is, is when you have that that initial series you have a way to get people to engage with your content.~

Shae: And inbound also means anybody who's coming through your website on a specific form. So if they sign up for a webinar, that webinar topic, attach it to If they sign, if they download an ebook, that ebook topic, attach it to them. Case studies, et cetera. Those are the topics that you would want to use to categorize your inbound leads.

Jordan: Do you do that? Or do you so a perfect world scenario is you have a CRM system that is connected to all of the things so that it automatically updates for you. That perfect world scenario [00:33:00] rarely exists. So what do you to help guide that process? Like for teams when it. sounds like it's just another task that they need to complete.

Shae: From a structure perspective, I always want to go to the foundation. And if you have platforms that are disparate, they're not connected to each other, they're not related to each other in some way. So here's your CRM that doesn't talk to ~your marketing, ~your email marketing system that doesn't talk to your website, but you have all these ~kind of, you know, ~half connections.

Make sure at the foundation there is something in each of these places that matches. So that could be a contact ID, subscriber key, or a form ID. Those things that can correlate, like if this contact fills out this form, this form ID tells ~this mail, ~this email marketing system, do this automation, run this program.

And that is my favorite thing to do.

Jordan: I actually love that. ~That's not the answer I thought you were going to give us. Oh. ~Because I thought we were going to go down a path of, well here's how I talk to sales teams about this, but you just gave us a completely different [00:34:00] route to take.

Alyssa: But I think it all comes full circle because we've talked a lot about challenges and barriers for people to access, visualize, and analyze their data.

What you just mentioned is probably one of the biggest challenges is that don't match in systems. So we try to pull data from, and then you get into like financials, like they've ordered something. Does their ID of the customer match within the CRM? How can you associate that revenue to this customer ID?

Because in Salesforce, it's this. Quickbooks it's this. their order system, it's this. And that is like one of the biggest things that clients We'll just match them. And it's like, well, okay, like, we can, and we can house all of this in, like, a CDP that like helps to correlate, but then it gets into expense and infrastructure.

There are barriers on multiple levels of this, but what you're kind of describing, Shae, is you've found ways where each of these systems, they have connectors to a thing that [00:35:00] you're taking those connecting pieces together. The IDs that match you're that as the trigger to the next thing. That is brilliant.

Shae: Yeah, so like ~on your website, ~on your website, you'll have either a form ID or a lead source. So like you have I'm going to call it downloadable PDF because that's as creative as I can get right now. So your form says lead source, downloadable PDF. Downloadable PDF is a tag or something inside of your email marketing system that says somebody just downloaded this PDF, I'm going to automatically tag them, here is where they go next.

Through this automation that can then talk to through something like Zapier or you know if it has an integration that can talk to your CRM that says note these things down. ~By create task for sales, do this. ~So those are the automations that you can build. None of it is truly forever, not manual. Like there are some manual pieces that you're going to have to do, but the automations that you build at the foundation can help you make sure that all of your systems are connected and collecting data in a way that is beneficial for you for [00:36:00] future marketing or sales campaigns.

That's super cool. It's super fun too.

Jordan: Well, I love that you love this.

Alyssa: I'm like, matching IDs and automating.

Jordan: Like, the whole thing sounds great. ~I personally don't want to be the person to do it. That's awesome. ~However, what you're describing also, like, kind of calling it back to the very start of our conversation.

And unfortunately, ~like, ~due to time, this is probably where we're going to have to wrap. ~But, ~at the beginning, you talked about marketers having to pivot. Quite a bit. Like, I mean, when we graduated to now, and again, years, that has passed, a lot of technology has changed, data has become a lot prevalent, and what you just described is, like, you've found a niche within your career path that has become highly technical, and working across a lot of different platforms, ~it's like, ~it's like you are pulling puzzle pieces together in order to make things work, and I think so far throughout some of these interviews that we've done, and I think in one of ours with the Meritrust team, it [00:37:00] was don't be afraid to explore and problem solve, and what you just walked us through is a way that you have figured out, ~like, you know, ~you know enough about the tools, you know, you have the experience to understand, like, what the business needs are, and you started to pull pieces of the puzzle together to say, okay, Perfect world scenario can't be accomplished.

What can I do instead to sure that we're at least pulling in good data to use, that things are working effectively and efficiently, and it's still like helping us understand if we're achieving results or not. ~So kudos to you for finding the technical route. ~

Shae: Oh yeah, I love, I love marketing.

I like into the dirt.

Alyssa: It seems like marketing is heading a much more technical trajectory and I feel like you're kind of ahead of the curve, because I think marketers are going to have to adapt and build that into their skill set, whether they're in an agency Is that, do you think that's true?

~Absolutely. I mean, ~

Jordan: Absolutely. I think a lot of the conversations, I've, I feel very, I encourage that a lot of the conversations, at [00:38:00] least around our like local marketing associations, has been going a lot more toward, you know, how do we use tools effectively, ~like, help me understand ~how I need to be using data in my career, ~like, ~marketers know what questions are being asked, and they want to be able to deliver, but everything that, ~you know, ~you do in your career, Shae, a lot of what I do, this wasn't taught to us, ~No. ~ Social media was kind of a thing when we graduated, and so there's been a lot of shifts, and I think it's difficult. There are programs that exist like out at WSU Tech ~and whatnot ~that are getting students a lot more hands on with platforms than we were ever able to do, but the reality of the situation is, ~is if you want, ~if marketers up and coming marketers want this kind of experience.

You have to go out and find it, and that also means that businesses have to give them a good length of leash to test and trial, because that's the [00:39:00] only way that we've learned in our careers, having really good environments where we can say, I don't know, but I'll figure it out. And I think that is something that both businesses and up and coming marketers and current marketers all have to collaborate on. Being comfortable in that, I don't know, but I am willing to learn and I will figure it out mode. ~also, oh. ~

Alyssa: That's a shift for business owners because marketing has been viewed as the silver bullet, golden key.

Jordan: We could have a whole episode on me standing on a soapbox about this, I think.

Because I really want to go on it, but very much so, yes.

Shae: And, and, that's where ~that~ that brainstorming collaboration that you were talking about earlier really comes in. Because the answers to questions that people ask about anything, a lot of people don't know. You can't remember everything about everything.

But Google exists, so that's helpful. But I don't know. I'll figure it out. Is The majority of a marketer's career. I don't know. I'll figure it out because I can.

Jordan: Again, soapbox, but also a lot of the [00:40:00] questions that we think we, or a lot of the answers we think we're going to give, you don't know until you're in Yeah. ~You, ~you don't know, like you can have some assumptions if you've got good historicals to lean against or again, like gut reactions, but ~a lot of the questions that you not actually the question. ~sometimes people want to ask like They're trying to find an answer to something, but it takes, ~like, ~a curious marketer in this aspect to say, Okay, well, this is the question that you asked, but here's also the three other things that I uncovered that kind of makes this go in a different direction completely.

Alyssa: Well, and I think that's why starting with the audit is really smart because ~Well, ~what it revealed to us was there's a lot of stuff that was not fun or sexy that we had to deal with to make the good stuff work, right? And ~like, ~that involved rebuilding the whole back end of our website that ~like, ~no one sees, you know?

~But like, that's what makes things go round, and that's what we've seen to be true as we've like, optimized on that. ~But I think a lot of times, like, this would be the soapbox, like the silver bullet requires a lot of foundational formational work that was just like

Shae: You need that strategy, you need the technical know [00:41:00] how, and you need the creative behind it. For anything to be a silver bullet in marketing, you need all three of those things, and then you need a little bit of luck and timing.

Jordan: So, and that goes to, and again, we'll have to like wrap this up. I know, like, again, let's just part two this.

That goes back to our innovation conversation. And one of the first presentations that Alyssa and I gave together in front of a group of people was all around how data can be used in innovating within your business. ~But ~it was centered around this, ~like, ~innovation wheel that typically, a lot of times, innovation is really focused on, ~like, ~product development and revenue. Those are only two pieces of this whole pie. ~Like you said. ~Other parts of that pie include customer service, ~it includes ~the networks and the partnerships that you have, ~it includes ~your branding and your marketing, ~like, ~all of those pieces of the pie have to work together, ~and ~a lot of what we've ~kind of ~been soapboxing is that if the data is not available to be [00:42:00] seen and ~to be ~understood by all of the individuals ~that have, you know, that are ~in charge of these different segments, You're not truly going to find effective innovation.

~You're going to kind of like be picking things like, well let's just try that right now, or let's go after this, or hey we're going to innovate this product, you just go out and sell it. Which isn't, isn't No. I mean you could argue that that's squashing innovation, truly. Yeah. But okay, I digress.~ Okay, Shea, we'll part two this later. final thoughts on Dirty Data that you would like to convey to our audience?

Shae: You know, I think one of the best things you can do is if you have a system in place, go into your system, see if it can filter by unengaged or disengaged contacts, figure out why those people are disengaged or get them out of your system because you don't need to hang on to information you're not using.

And a clean database is going to make your segmentation and your life in sales a lot easier.

Jordan: Marie Kondo that!

Shae: Marie Kondo! Does not bring me joy.

Jordan: Well, thank you Shea for joining us today. Thank you. And if you would also like to join the Shea Blevins fan club, we are currently accepting memberships. Email us at hello at insightlypodcast.

com or just in [00:43:00] general if you have dirty data questions that you'd like to ask and you'd want us to bring Shea back on to help answer those. ~Or if you want to hire her. Yeah. You know, if you want a referral for Just kidding, you guys. We will share. Yeah. Email us and let us know. ~

Alyssa: We'll catch you on the next episode.