Consequences of Data Hoarding (and how to overcome)
Data-driven decisions are essential for personalized marketing messages and business operations in 2024. However, you have to gather only the data you actually need and then ensure it’s clean and organized. If you have an abundance of unstructured data accumulating each week from disparate sources, you may quickly find yourself a victim of data hoarding.
What is Data Hoarding & Why is it Bad?
Data hoarding occurs when excessive data is collected, making effective utilization nearly impossible. As a business, you may find yourself simultaneously drowning in both valuable and useless data yet at a loss for how to manage it.
Consequences of data hoarding:
- Damaged customer relationships: hoarded data often includes outdated data. Acting on inaccurate data can damage relationships with customers you’ve worked hard to build trust with.
- Wasted time and energy: Organizing stockpiles of data can take an excessive amount of time and energy that wouldn’t be necessary if your data was collected and managed correctly from the beginning.
- Stressed employees and bad decisions: Although data-driven decisions are important, if your employees don’t feel like they have the time or energy to get your data hoarding under control, they may feel paralyzed and resort to making gut decisions when it comes to strategy.
- Privacy concerns: If you’re not managing the data you collect correctly, you may be collecting more data than what you need, potentially even private data. If your data is ever breached or you are found to be breaking any regulations with the data you own, your customers’ personal privacy and your reputation could be at stake, in addition to any fines you may receive.
Are You a Data Hoarder?
Becoming a data hoarder is incredibly easy for businesses and marketers to do, with so many campaigns depending on data to target and speak to customers. If you have too much outdated or inaccurate data, or if your team feels like they spend more time looking at and managing data than they actually utilize it, Ragnarok is here to help. Let’s look at the steps you can take to overcome this challenge and use data effectively.
The Remedy for Data Hoarding
We may begin with a zeal for data collection and all of the opportunities it presents: personalization, strategy, and knowledge, to name a few. But there are a few key steps when deciding to collect data: (1) be explicit about which data you need to collect, and (2) design and implement ongoing data check and clean-up processes. Otherwise, data acquisition can quickly accumulate into a quagmire.
Not to worry! You can resolve data hoarding and discover the results you’ve been looking for by going back to those two missed steps.
1. Explicit Data Collection & Inventory
When collecting data, be strategic. Ask: what data is crucial for my goals? Focus on capturing only the key information to avoid bogging yourself down with unnecessary data.
2. Ongoing Data Check & Clean Up Processes
To keep your data fresh, implement routine cleanups where you check that the data you have is still valid and current. Discarding inaccurate and outdated data on a regular basis will help you avoid the accumulation of bad data.
Need Help with Your Data?
Are you feeling overwhelmed or frustrated by all the data you manage? We completely understand, and we’re here to help. At Ragnarok, we specialize in data-powered marketing and MarTech consulting. We’ve seen firsthand the amazing results data can drive when deployed thoughtfully.
We would love to answer any questions you have about your data, help you clean up your data dictionary, implement more effective campaigns, and establish data management best practices. Reach out to our specialists today.
