You don't start with bad data. The problem is your CRM is designed to accumulate it.
Every CRM and AMS ever built is designed to capture data at a moment in time. Someone attends your webinar and their info goes into the database. Done.
All contact data has a half-life, but the system has no mechanism to question whether that information is still true six months later. It just holds what you gave it and waits until the email bounces and they get put in a black hole of contacts with a bad email.
The database isn't failing. It's doing exactly what it was designed to do. The problem is that it was never designed to account for the fact that people change.
It's about more than cleaning up the data, it's about improving the entire system. Think of it like a personal relationship. If you are the only one giving, it's going to break down.
Your relationships with attendees, members, and sponsors are crucial to your long-term success. Unfortunately, for years, decades, we've been managing these dynamic relationships with static tools.
CRMs are doing exactly what they were designed to do. But what they were designed to do is no longer sufficient.
Shift from "Database" to "Living System"
- CRMs are built like filing cabinets (store and retrieve)
- What you actually need is something closer to a living system
- One that continuously validates, updates, and questions data