Here at Responsible Mailing we offer a wide range of data processing services to boost the efficiency of your marketing programme.
What is Data Cleansing?
Data cleansing, often referred to as data cleaning is the process of detecting and removing corrupt or inaccurate records from a database. When combining multiple data sources, there is a lot of opportunities for data to be duplicated or mislabelled. If the data is not correct, outcomes and algorithms are unreliable, even though they do in fact seem correct.
There is no clear defined process regarding data cleaning as the process will change from dataset to dataset. It is important to establish a template for your data cleaning process, so you know you are doing it the right way every time.
Data Cleansing vs Data Validation
The actual process of data cleansing could involve removing typographical errors or validating and correcting values against a known list of entities. Data cleansing is slightly different from data validation as data validation is the process of ensuring data has undergone data cleansing to ensure they have data quality, that is when they are both correct and useful.
Data validation occurs when the data is entered for the first time into the database. Whereas data cleansing can occur at anytime after to check and make sure that data is correct and there are no errors.
Why is data cleansing important?
We believe data cleansing is important because it will ensure you have data of the highest quality possible. By not cleansing data, you will not only put a stop to errors, but it will also prevent customer and employee frustration, increase overall productivity, and improve data analysis and decision-making based on the results of the data.
If you do not clean data first, the dataset is more likely to be inaccurate, messy, and ultimately incomplete.
How to clean & manage your data
- Remove duplicate contacts
- Fix structural errors
- Fix any data which is missing
- Keep your data fresh and up to date
- Standardise data entry.
You might have produced the most exciting and visually creative mail piece, but if it fails to reach its target or it’s first impressions are poor, the investment in your carefully prepared message will go to waste.
Responsible Mailing work hard to ensure our clients’ mailing campaigns are as targeted as much as possible. Poor quality address data will adversely affect your response rates and increase your postage costs. We offer a full range of data processing services to maximise the effectiveness of your marketing programme.
Postal Address File (PAF) Validation
Royal Mail’s postal address file (PAF) is the authoritative mailing database against which all others are verified. By validating your data against the PAF file you can ensure your data is accurate and obtain the maximum postal discounts available on the various schemes operated by Royal Mail, Whistl and many more.
File De-Duplication
De-duplication is one of the largest areas to consider when managing your data. Duplicate entries can often creep into mailing lists over time. By carrying out regular de-duplication of your lists you can keep your costs and reputation in check.
