How to efficiently clean up your database?

[highfidelity]

Heya,

I just joined a company and want to clean up their hubspot database as it’s quite a mess. I’m looking to do this as efficient as possible.

Most contacts in the database are cold contacts added through the Outlook hubspot plugin (thus original source = offline). 600 from the 1000 contacts are added through this way.

In the future, all ‘useless’ contacts will have lifecycle stage ‘subscriber’, but in the past this wasn’t applied correctly.

My question is, are there any efficient ways to clean up old contacts without having to go through them one by one? I know about the merging contacts feature for example.

Bonus question: if sales reaches out to cold clients but they are interested or don’t reply, should they have the instinct to put the lifecycle stage to subscriber? Or is there a way to automate this?

[karstenkoehler · Accepted solution]

Hello @highfidelity,

Great question, a complex one. The best methods will depend on what exactly you want to achieve. Do you want them to book a meeting or subscribe to a marketing newsletter?

For those cold (and potentially old?) contacts, I'd highly recommend using an email validation tool like ZeroBounce, NeverBounce, Xverify etc. – This is to ensure that these contact's inboxes are actually still active. A high hard bounce rate will negatively effect your sender reputation. (Check with your data privacy officer whether using an email validation tool is compliant with legislation where you're doing business.)

In terms of checking how cold these contacts actually are, you could run a re-engagement campaign, either using the sales tools (one-to-one email, sequences) or by sending a marketing email campaign. A sales email could be along the lines of "we were in touch a while ago, are you still interested?", a marketing campaign could outline the content you're planning on sending them and asking whether they're in or out. Please note that you need a legal basis to communicate with these contacts and potentially explicit consent for sending marketing emails. (This post does not constitute legal advice.)

In general, I would expect a better outcome from individual outreach.

During this outreach (re: your bonus question), I would explain to sales how to maintain a few properties, especially lifecycle stage but also lead status (which can be customized to your needs). A contact could for example be a customer ready for upselling (Lifecycle stage = Customer, Lead status = In progress), another could be a good fit but not interested (Lifecycle stage = Lead, Lead status = Not interested) or ready for a call (Lifecycle stage = Lead, Lead status = In progress).

By the way, if some contacts are clearly neither a good fit nor interested, I would assign the lifecycle stage "Other" rather than "Subscriber".

Hope this helps!

[AdamLPW · Accepted solution]

Hi @highfidelity,

Further to @karstenkoehler's always excellent contribution, I've recently started investigating Insycle, following a recommendation on another forum thread.  Integrates with your HubSpot account and helps with housekeeping either on a one-off basis or with scheduled tasks.  

It can do custom bulk "recipes", such as setting Lifecycle stage to "Subscriber" for all contacts who have never opened a sales email AND condition x OR condition y, etc., etc.

Worth a look - it's freemium, so there's a trial run of X operations, maybe 500, before you have to start paying.  It's certainly saved me some time already, but I feel like I've only really scratched the surface. 

[karstenkoehler · Accepted solution]

Hello @highfidelity,

Great question, a complex one. The best methods will depend on what exactly you want to achieve. Do you want them to book a meeting or subscribe to a marketing newsletter?

For those cold (and potentially old?) contacts, I'd highly recommend using an email validation tool like ZeroBounce, NeverBounce, Xverify etc. – This is to ensure that these contact's inboxes are actually still active. A high hard bounce rate will negatively effect your sender reputation. (Check with your data privacy officer whether using an email validation tool is compliant with legislation where you're doing business.)

In terms of checking how cold these contacts actually are, you could run a re-engagement campaign, either using the sales tools (one-to-one email, sequences) or by sending a marketing email campaign. A sales email could be along the lines of "we were in touch a while ago, are you still interested?", a marketing campaign could outline the content you're planning on sending them and asking whether they're in or out. Please note that you need a legal basis to communicate with these contacts and potentially explicit consent for sending marketing emails. (This post does not constitute legal advice.)

In general, I would expect a better outcome from individual outreach.

During this outreach (re: your bonus question), I would explain to sales how to maintain a few properties, especially lifecycle stage but also lead status (which can be customized to your needs). A contact could for example be a customer ready for upselling (Lifecycle stage = Customer, Lead status = In progress), another could be a good fit but not interested (Lifecycle stage = Lead, Lead status = Not interested) or ready for a call (Lifecycle stage = Lead, Lead status = In progress).

By the way, if some contacts are clearly neither a good fit nor interested, I would assign the lifecycle stage "Other" rather than "Subscriber".

Hope this helps!

[STorchia]

Thank for the information!  My first thought was to reach out individually, so I appreciate that you reinforced this point with "how" to do this and "why" I should.