Press Release

DATA CLEANSING SERVICE IMPROVES EFFECTIVENESS OF B2B MARKETING

Equifax offers Free Data Quality Audit

London, 3rd June 2009 - Accurate data has always been crucial for the best return on investment in marketing activity, but the current economic climate is making it even more important for businesses to ensure their databases contain the best quality information. A high turnover of businesses going under as well as new businesses starting up is making it particularly important for organisations to ensure that business to business marketing databases are completely up to date.

Tackling this challenge, leading marketing services provider, Equifax, has launched a free B2B Data Quality Audit service, giving businesses access to data cleansing and enrichment for the best possible return on marketing activity.

Simon Bennett, Sales Manager, B2B Marketing at Equifax comments, "We recognise the importance of enabling trade to help lift the economy, but also understand how challenging current market conditions are for marketing and sales departments. In particular, when a successful prospect is found, to then be told by their internal credit management team they will not extend terms, resulting in the order not being placed is very frustrating. Therefore, with the depth of data we offer, including non-limited and newly incorporated businesses, it enables marketers to target the businesses that their entire organisation will want to trade with."

Making sure data is up to date, accurate and has all of the right intelligence appended, is crucial. Equifax figures show that over 10% of businesses move premises every year with changes to postcodes and telephone numbers affecting a further 20%. This is on top of the considerable numbers of businesses that have failed in the last year - as well as the new start ups. This makes maintaining the quality of business data a constant challenge.

Bennett continues, "Equifax's Data Quality Audit system electronically assesses the completeness, accuracy and consistency of an organisation's in-house customer or prospect data, to eliminate inaccuracy and improve marketing campaign effectiveness. At a time when budgets are stretched, we can offer customers peace of mind that the raw data they hold is correct and will work as efficiently and effectively as possible from the outset of any campaign."

Data is analysed against the Equifax B2B Connect database of 4.6 million business records across the UK, built utilising Companies House information and a wealth of other data sources, for a unique blend of marketing data. B2B Connect also provides an extended range of financial selection criteria, including a risk indicator based on Equifax credit scores and limits, enabling marketers to assess the financial status of companies they want to target in order to significantly improve the effectiveness and profitability of B2B direct mail campaigns.

"Accurate data offers businesses a wide range of benefits, minimising wastage on postage, while effectively targeted campaigns also result in fewer complaints" concluded Simon Bennett. "In the long-term, data cleansing can help boost a company's reputation and deliver higher response rates, making it crucial in today's struggling economy."

For further press information please contact: Wendy Harrison, Cecile Stearn, Margot Tomkinson or Jenny Staniforth at HSL on 020 8977 9132 / Fax: 020 8977 5200 or Email: wendy@harrisonsadler.com