B2B marketers taking advantage of the international market have long held the premise of ‘think global, act local’ at the heart of any strategy. Markets have now become increasingly international; for businesses looking to successfully sell across borders, accurate address and contact information is critical. Selling into another country is difficult at the best of times; trying to do this with a database riddled with fundamental addressing mistakes highlights a lack of understanding to customers and prospects. Getting the fundamentals wrong creates a bad impression and wastes both time and money.
In the first instance, many companies rely on lists of prospect data purchased from third party sources. Another critical issue is that even though the source is qualified, most international address data lacks detail. If the original source is, for example, an online form filled in by the prospect in question, it can often be incomplete.
There are some basic and more advanced steps that a marketer can take to ensure their international B2B address data is effectively managed and adds value to an international marketing strategy:
It is common sense to assume that a sizeable proportion of data degrades the moment it enters a database – in this instance, consider relocation of businesses or change of contact name. Regular cleansing, maintenance and updating of international address databases using the address management or data integrity technology available will ensure that these risks are reduced and in many cases eliminated. Validation of address data at the point of capture (e.g. on a website form, EPOS system or call centre) is also a good tactic to ensure the database is not polluted with incorrect data from the first instance.
First and foremost, the business requirement for international addressing and datasets must be identified. Determine how often and in what volume address data needs to be validated or cleansed, as well as whether this is done at the point of capture or post-capture. Also, consider whether there is the necessary expertise and resources to manage the process in-house. A high volume user will benefit from implementing a desktop or enterprise solution, delivering quicker processing and significant cost savings long-term (e.g. a contact centre, global website or an enterprise using MDM (master data management) or ERP (enterprise resource planning) systems such as SAP).
On-demand and hosted services break down barriers to the international market for the more sporadic user, providing online access to multiple country address data sets on a pay-per-search basis. This method offers a convenient low risk, cost efficient route to an accurate international address database, without significant licensing and implementation costs.
Enhancing the international address data with external datasets such as Geocoding, lifestyle and various B2B information can add considerable value to the data already held by the business. Some international address management systems and services add further substance through linking customer/prospect data from other databases, legacy systems or web-based sources. Such supplementary information can help increase the effectiveness of targeting in an international direct marketing campaign, especially if there is little knowledge within the business of particular overseas markets.
The quality of the address datasets referenced when using addressing technology is of vital importance, even more so when dealing with international customers. In the UK and the Netherlands, because the national postal file is virtually comprehensive and of good quality, a postal code and house reference is generally sufficient to return an accurate address, but elsewhere address data isn’t necessarily this accurate.
The quality and coverage of the raw postal data provided by national postal authorities can vary tremendously. For example, Ireland does not have a comprehensive postcode system that covers the whole country; whilst Germany, France and Italy have postal files that contain data to street level only for specific urban areas.
Although the raw address data provided by a number of national postal authorities provides a useful starting point, for real accuracy this frequently needs to be enhanced with data tables derived from other sources such as government agencies, publishing houses, utilities, associations and private companies to improveaccuracy.
To the outsider, the four or five lines and postal code (if available) that constitute an address may seem simple, but handling the humble address at an international level is far more complicated than it may seem. Many countries have a unique way of formatting an address. It is therefore essential that the technology in question is flexible enough to return addresses that are correctly formatted.
Don’t forget that it is also important to incorporate support of spellings and characters such as accents and umlauts. Getting these seemingly simplest elements right can mean the difference between further business with the customer or prospect and your correspondence and relationship with them going (literally) in the bin.
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