Migrating to a new CRM is an ideal opportunity to engage in some deep cleaning of your list. The first reason is straightforward; you don’t want to pack and move “stuff,” i.e., contacts that are no longer serving the business objectives. The second reason is it helps you review where the value exists in your current contact database and to align your business development to what is currently working.
Migration Hygiene Steps – The Basics
- Identify all customers. A customer is any contact in your database who has ever paid you money regardless of the timing, amount paid, or the system that hosted the order. Every contact who has purchased from you should have a customer identifier attached to it.
- Identify all non-mailable contacts – these include contacts who’ve unsubscribed, marked your email as spam, and any additional criteria your current system may use for deeming a contact non-mailable.
- Cross-reference and identify all contacts in your database who are both non-mailable and NOT a customer. Export the full spectrum of data points for these identified contacts to a CSV file and save to the cloud or locally (or both). At this point, depending on your comfort level, you could delete these contacts from your current system or set them effectively out of the way by using an identifier.
- Review your database that will be migrated for the following detail that may apply to your business needs:
- Database segments or sub-lists
–do you have offers that serve different markets? A classic example of this is if you sell products to pet owners, it is important to identify as segments the type of pet someone has – dogs, cats, or goldfish – so you can align your offers according. Add identifiers to your list as needed for market sub-segments.
–do you have unique lead generation pathways that need to be preserved?
–do you have more than one offer or product? You’ve identified customers globally, and we also recommend that you have an identifier for the specific purchase(s) - Customized data – most CRMs come with a standard set of datapoint usually, but not always, set up as fields or properties. If your current system also utilizes tags, that may be where much of your custom data is found. If you need assistance with identifying what customized data you need to keep, please ask us. We are happy to assist.
–identify all customized data that will need to be ported with your contacts
–document the customized data noting the data format (field, property, tag, other)
–consider deleting customized data that is no longer useful or applicable - Map your data export – now that you have cleaned and organized your current database, the next step is to export a sample of 25 random contacts and send it to us for review. We will get back to you with adjustments to make for a clean and accurate port from your current system to the new one.
Additional Considerations
- Multiple systems – it is not unusual for a business to have data hosted in different systems. You may have a stand-alone e-commerce system or an old CRM that still has relevant data. If this is true for you, please reach out for guidance.
- Culling the trash from the treasure – identifying what data in your current system has value and what does not can be challenging. After all, all of the data had value at some point. “Does it still?” is the defining question. Here are our recommended litmuses:
1. Does the data point denote historically important information such as opt-in history, product purchase history, engagement history
2. Is the data decisionable? Does the information contained in the data inform a business decision that you will or may need to make in your business going forward?
3. Is the data necessary for ancillary systems that you are keeping in your tech stack to function?
If you are unsure about the answer to any of these considerations, just ask us!