topic Re: Creating an effective and efficient database? in Tips, Tricks & Best Practices

Creating an effective and efficient database?

YosefAmin — Mon, 18 Dec 2023 13:40:01 GMT

Hi,

What's the best way to manage a large contact list, comprising around 12,000+ contacts? The goal is to establish a sophisticated database capable of handling various filters in an effective and efficient manner.

Given the sheer volume of our contact list, filtering through all these contacts presents a significant challenge.

Specifically, I’m interested in:

What are the key considerations when designing a database for filtering large contact lists?
How can I ensure the database is optimized for handling various filters, especially given the large number of contacts?
Are there any specific tools or technologies that you would recommend?
Do you have any tips or resources that could guide me in creating this database?

Any insights or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance for your help!

Re: Creating an effective and efficient database?

karstenkoehler — Mon, 18 Dec 2023 13:45:13 GMT

Hi @YosefAmin,

The single most important thing you'll need to do is decide on certain required fields and make sure they're maintained on all records. The required fields should be, among others:

Lifecycle stage: https://knowledge.hubspot.com/contacts/use-lifecycle-stages
Contact type or Persona (e.g. Potential customer or customer, Employee, Business partner, Candidates, Journalists)
Legal basis for data processing: https://knowledge.hubspot.com/contacts/how-can-i-track-lawful-basis-of-processing-in-hubspot
Legal basis for sending marketing communication: https://knowledge.hubspot.com/contacts/how-do-subscription-preferences-and-types-work
Contact source
Interest

Once you have this, segmentation will become easily apparent and it'll be clear, too, what should happen to these contacts. You'll know which contacts to include in certain marketing and sales efforts and which ones to exclude. You'll see when segments were last communicated to and which ones haven't been.

At this point, it doesn't really matter whether you're managing a large list or a small one. You're just doing things on a bigger scale which allows you to A/B test more.

Best regards!

Re: Creating an effective and efficient database?

YosefAmin — Tue, 19 Dec 2023 12:16:59 GMT

Hi Karsten,

Thank you for your insightful comment.

I should have clarified that we work in the Swedish construction industry. And many construction businesses here specialize in different things. Some work with the construction of highways and railways, some others work specifically with the construction of tunnels and bridges. These are just examples of separate units that we want to get better at filtering in HubSpot. We have around 5 sub-categories within the construction business, and each of these categories have their own sub-categories that need to be filtered.

I've attached a photo showing what I'm looking for:

Up top to the absolute left is "construction businesses". The categories linked to it are the different type of construction work within this industry.

Each relevant business must then be placed in the correct category...

I hope this helped you understand the context better.

Re: Creating an effective and efficient database?

karstenkoehler — Tue, 19 Dec 2023 12:27:19 GMT

Hi @YosefAmin,

Thanks for adding this new context – the advice from my previous reply still stands. There is no tool which will magically sort, map, maintain these records. You'll have to decide on required bits of information and make sure they're maintained on all records.

Whenever you want to distinguish between a type of company, you can typically do so via custom properties: https://knowledge.hubspot.com/crm-setup/manage-your-properties

Additionally, you're bringing up relationships between these records. You might want to look into these resources:

Parent child relationships: https://knowledge.hubspot.com/companies/how-can-i-add-a-parent-or-child-company-to-an-existing-company-record
Associate companies with companies: https://knowledge.hubspot.com/crm-setup/associate-records
Association labels: https://knowledge.hubspot.com/crm-setup/create-and-use-association-labels
Custom objects: https://knowledge.hubspot.com/crm-setup/use-custom-objects

It's hard to say what an exact setup should look like. This depends on what your reporting goals are, your requirements for certain processes and your overall use cases. The above are starting points that you can use to figure that out.

Regarding this question...

What's the best way to manage a large contact list, comprising around 12,000+ contacts? The goal is to establish a sophisticated database capable of handling various filters in an effective and efficient manner.

... there seem to be a lot of sub-questions in there. Depending your requirements, different options will make most sense. There is however no one-size-fits-all best approach.

Best regards!