Few things will disrupt engagement more than sending impersonal, cold outreach. And few things are less personal than messaging that has nothing you care about.

No one wants to receive messaging that could be for anyone. The absolute starting point for better engagement is getting our data in order at the source and keeping it "clean."

Issue: Bad Data

We lose the ability to properly personalize our outreach (or personalize it at all) when the data we're working from is incorrect or incomplete.

(See how we tackle tracking and attribution in our previous blog.)

Remedies:

1. Clean that data.
   The longer you put off cleaning your data, the more challenging things will get. If you don't have a data governance plan, make one, audit what you have, and do whatever you can to clean your data. Without clean data, it is impossible to personalize communications in even the simplest ways (name, preferred name, pronouns, etc.).
   
2. Keep forms intelligent and easy.
   Cleaning data can be a lot of work. Always better to capture clean data from the onset. Even small formatting changes will make life easier. Every piece of clean data is an opportunity to engage with your students and prospects.
   
3. Coordinate your content plans.
   As long as we're not asking too many questions, take the opportunity to think about the content you're planning. Are there opportunities to ask for data that will help you? Students want to feel that you are speaking to them personally, so let's show them we care. Include their interests and needs by asking them the right questions and using those answers in our campaigns.
   
4. Coordinate your communications and marketing plans.
   Coordinating your data collection efforts with your marketing gives us the best opportunity to maximize our data collection efforts and spread our "asks" across multiple campaigns. No one wants to fill out extensive forms. Space your data collection across your outreach and think creatively about the best times to ask for specific pieces of information.

The more we know, the more we can do.

A lot of effort goes into the thinking behind protecting and securing data. An equal amount of effort needs to go into how we're collecting, when we're collecting, and what we're collecting.

The more we know, the more we can tailor our messaging, build connections, and demonstrate to students that we care about them as individuals.

While it's still not the same as genuine, personal knowledge, good data collection (and usage) is the best we can do in these busy modern times.

To see how Element451 can help you get the info you need, when you need it,connectwith us orschedule a demo.